An allied health answering service that books the client in, instead of taking a message.
An OT out on a home visit, a speech pathologist on the floor with a four-year-old, a podiatrist with a patient's foot in their hands: nobody in the room is reaching for a ringing phone. In a clinic with several disciplines that is true of almost everyone, for most of the day. And the calls that ring out are rarely quick ones. They come from parents asking who sees toddlers, from plan managers chasing an invoice, and from GP patients holding a referral letter who would like a first appointment this week.
Answering service or dedicated receptionist: which does an allied health clinic need?
Search for an allied health answering service and two different products come back under one name. A call-answering bureau shares its operators across many businesses and bills a monthly plan plus a fee per call or per minute. A dedicated receptionist works for your clinic alone, for the hours you book, inside your practice software. Both have a place, and which one fits comes down to how your calls usually end.
Per-call answering service
A message
- Shared operators covering many businesses at once, reading from a short script about your clinic
- The usual result is a note: a name, a number and a reason, emailed or texted to someone at the clinic to return
- Priced by volume, a monthly plan plus a charge per call or per minute, which stays cheap while calls are few
- Overnight staffing is often on offer, which no single person working your hours can match
- A sensible fit when calls are occasional, mostly simple, and someone in the clinic can ring back quickly
Dedicated DotVA receptionist
A booking
- One person, yours alone, who learns your practitioners, appointment types, published fees and the questions callers keep asking
- Books while the caller waits, or reschedules them, or adds them to the waitlist, directly in your practice software
- Handles the paperwork allied health callers bring: GP referral letters, NDIS plan details and claim numbers for compensable clients
- Uses the gaps between calls for intake forms, recall lists and cancellation offers rather than waiting for the next ring
- Billed by the hour at $12-17 AUD ex GST from 10 hours a week, with no per-call charges
- A sensible fit when most calls should end in an appointment, or need an answer only someone who knows the clinic can give
Here is the test Jenn applies on discovery calls. If most of your calls finish with a booking, a reschedule or a referral being lined up, a dedicated person is worth the hourly rate. If most finish with a message for someone to return, a per-call bureau or the AI receptionist will cost you less, and she will say so. Plenty of clinics end up with both: a person through opening hours and AI once the doors close.
Eight calls a multi-discipline clinic has to get right
The GP referral and five subsidised visits
From 1 July 2025 the GP chronic condition management plan replaced GP management plans and team care arrangements, and referrals to allied health are now written as letters. A patient can claim up to five Medicare-subsidised allied health services each calendar year, shared across every discipline, so two podiatry visits in March leave three for the dietitian. The receptionist books the first appointment, asks for the referral letter to be sent ahead, logs it on the file and flags anything unclear for your team. Rebate questions are your team's to answer.
NDIS participants and their plan managers
An NDIS enquiry raises questions a generic operator will not think to ask. Is the plan self-managed, plan-managed or managed by the NDIA? Who is the plan manager, and when does the plan end? Agency-managed participants can only use registered providers, so if your practice is not registered, the receptionist says so politely before anything is booked. When plan managers ring about invoices or remittances, the query is logged against the client for whoever does your claiming.
Workers comp and transport accident clients
Someone hurt at work or on the road usually rings with a claim already open, and your clinic needs its details before the first invoice: the claim number, the insurer or agent, the case manager and sometimes the employer. Each state's schemes run their own way (WorkSafe, TAC, icare, WorkCover and the rest), so the receptionist works from a checklist your team writes for each one, gathers the details at booking and leaves approvals and billing questions with you.
Several diaries, one phone number
A parent asks whether anyone sees toddlers for feeding. A daughter wants to know if someone can visit her mum at an aged-care home. When an OT, a speechie, a dietitian and an EP share one line, much of reception is sending each caller to the right person. You give the receptionist a matching guide (who sees children, who does home and aged-care visits, who takes NDIS clients, who offers telehealth) and they book into that practitioner's own diary and appointment types, not the first gap on the screen.
Cancellations and the waitlist
Many paediatric speech and OT practices carry a long waitlist, which makes a same-day cancellation valuable, provided someone acts on it within the hour. When a client cancels, the receptionist checks the waitlist for a match on practitioner, availability and funding type, rings or texts them and books the first yes. Your late-cancellation policy is applied as written, never renegotiated over the phone.
Intake, recalls and the next booking
A first allied health appointment needs more than a time slot. The receptionist sends your intake and consent forms, chases any still outstanding the day before, and attaches the telehealth link when the session is remote. Later, they make sure each client finishes a block of sessions with the next visit booked or a recall set, and they ring through the review lists you approve, from podiatry recalls to dietetic follow-ups.
GPs, coordinators and case managers
Not every caller is a client. A support coordinator chasing a report, a GP's rooms confirming they sent a referral, a case manager wanting an update, a teacher hoping to speak with the speech pathologist: each needs a full message in the right practitioner's task list, not a sticky note. The receptionist confirms who is calling and on whose behalf, and shares nothing about a client unless your written process allows it.
Halaxy, Cliniko, Splose and the rest
The receptionist works inside the practice software you already pay for, on a staff login with reception-level access and clinical notes hidden wherever the system allows, and your SMS reminders keep running as set up. Each system has a page on what a VA does there: Halaxy waiting list and claiming admin, Cliniko diary and intake forms, Splose for NDIS-registered practices, Nookal, classes included, Power Diary (now Zanda) and coreplus.
Where the receptionist's job ends and the practitioner's begins
Allied health callers often mix admin and something clinical in the same breath. A parent books their son's review and, in the same call, asks whether his stutter sounds worse lately. The receptionist books the review and writes the question down word for word for the speech pathologist. That boundary is agreed with you in writing before the first call is taken, and it does not bend because a caller is persistent.
The receptionist's desk
Admin
- Live answering in your practice name through opening hours, on your existing clinic number
- New enquiries matched to the right discipline and practitioner, then booked during the call
- Paperwork requested before the first visit: GP referral letters, NDIS plan details, compensable claim numbers
- Reschedules, cancellations, waitlist offers and recalls, with each outcome noted on the client file
- Intake forms, consent forms and telehealth links sent out and followed up
- Messages for practitioners from GPs, support coordinators and case managers, taken down in full
Stays with your practitioners
Clinical
- Clinical questions of every kind: symptoms, progress, whether a therapy suits a condition, what to do before a session
- Worrying or urgent calls: routed to the treating practitioner through the escalation steps you write, and anyone describing an emergency told to call 000
- Funding decisions: Medicare rebate eligibility, NDIS pricing and line items, and insurer approvals, all logged for your team
- Reports, letters and anything signed in a practitioner's name
- Outcome claims: scripts carry no testimonials and promise no results, which sits comfortably with AHPRA's advertising rules for the registered professions
- The payment terminal at your front counter, which needs a person physically in the clinic
Privacy is part of the setup, not a promise made afterwards. The receptionist signs a confidentiality agreement before starting, receives passwords through 1Password, and handles calls and client details inside your own clinic line and practice software, on logins you control and can revoke in seconds. Nothing sits on a personal device or a third-party call platform, and a data handling addendum for your practice is available on request. Every access control we use is listed on the data security page.
Single-discipline clinics have pages of their own: the physio virtual receptionist for rehab-heavy practices and the chiropractor virtual receptionist for care-plan clinics. Admin beyond the phone, from Medicare claiming to NDIS paperwork, is covered in the virtual assistant for allied health guide, with discipline versions for speech pathologists, occupational therapists, podiatrists, dietitians, exercise physiologists and osteopaths.
What allied health phone cover costs
Staff the hours your diaries are fullest
For example, a clinic that wants its line answered from 9:30am to 3:30pm on weekdays would book 30 hours a week, about $1,559-2,208 a month at $12-17/hr AUD ex GST. Staffing a full 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, is 40 hours and comes to about $2,078-2,944 a month.
Per call against per hour
A bureau's bill climbs with every call it answers. An hourly receptionist costs the same whether the phone rings six times in a shift or sixty, and the time between calls goes into waitlist offers, intake forms and recalls. Which works out cheaper depends on your call volume, so bring a rough count to the discovery call and Jenn will run the comparison with you.
Starting small
Placements begin at 10 hours a week, roughly $520-736 a month, which covers the first two hours of every weekday. Twenty hours a week comes to about $1,040-1,470 a month. Each monthly figure on this page is weekly hours, times the hourly rate, times 4.33 weeks.
When your receptionist is away
If your receptionist is on leave or off sick, we line up a stand-in wherever possible, briefed on your booking rules, and the AI receptionist can take calls in between. Day to day, you direct what they work on; DotVA looks after recruitment, pay, time tracking and billing, performance and any replacement. There is no lock-in contract: 14 days to stop for any reason once they start, then 30 days' notice.
Allied health answering service questions
What is the difference between an allied health answering service and a virtual receptionist?
An answering service is usually a shared team of operators who pick up for many businesses, note a name, a number and the reason for the call, and forward it to you as a message, charged per call or per minute on top of a monthly plan. A DotVA virtual receptionist is one person who works only for your clinic, on the hours you book. Because they can see every practitioner's diary, the call finishes with an appointment, a waitlist spot or a referral requested, rather than a note for somebody to return later. If most of your calls genuinely end in a simple message, a per-call service or our AI receptionist may be the cheaper choice, and we will tell you so.
Will the receptionist work in our practice software, such as Halaxy, Cliniko, Splose, Nookal, Power Diary (Zanda) or coreplus?
Yes. Whichever practice management system your clinic runs, the receptionist is given their own staff login, set up by you with only the access reception needs and switchable off whenever you like. Most of these systems let you hide clinical notes from an admin user, and we recommend doing exactly that. Each practitioner's appointment types, session lengths and availability keep working as they do now, your automated reminders keep sending, and the receptionist records the outcome of every call on the client file. No separate booking tool runs alongside the one your team already uses.
Can the receptionist handle NDIS, Medicare referral and workers compensation callers?
They handle the admin side of each, while the decisions stay with your team. For an NDIS participant they confirm how the plan is managed, take the plan manager's details and note the plan dates, so the service agreement and invoices go to the right place. For a patient referred under a GP chronic condition management plan, they ask for the GP's referral letter before the first visit and log it on the file. For a workers compensation or transport accident claim, they collect the claim number and the insurer and case manager details on your checklist. Questions about rebates, NDIS pricing or whether an insurer will approve treatment are written down and passed to whoever looks after claiming in your clinic.
Will the receptionist give clinical advice or decide how urgent a call is?
No. The receptionist is not a clinician and does not triage. Questions about symptoms, progress, whether a therapy suits a condition or what to do before a session are written down in the caller's own words and passed to the treating practitioner, with an appointment or a call-back offered. If a caller sounds distressed or describes a problem getting worse, the receptionist follows the escalation steps your clinic has written down, for example putting the call through to a practitioner between sessions. Anyone describing an emergency is told to hang up and call 000. None of this rests on the receptionist's own judgement.
Where is the receptionist based, and how is client privacy handled?
Your receptionist lives in the Philippines, usually Manila, and works your clinic's Australian hours rather than their own. Manila is two hours behind the east coast, or three in the states running daylight saving, so an 8am Sydney start means a 5am or 6am start in Manila, which is agreed before we recruit. On privacy, they sign a confidentiality agreement before starting, receive passwords through 1Password, take calls on your clinic number through a softphone and record client details inside your own practice software, on logins you can revoke. Nothing is kept on personal devices or in an outside call-centre system. Behind them, DotVA's Melbourne team runs recruitment, onboarding and billing.
How much does an allied health answering service cost, and is there a contract?
DotVA charges $12-17 an hour AUD ex GST for a dedicated receptionist, billed on the hours you book, with no per-call fees. You book at least 10 hours a week, which is about $520-736 a month; staffing the phone for a 40-hour week costs about $2,078-2,944 a month. We usually have your receptionist matched within about 7-10 business days, and the $500 deposit that starts the search comes off your first invoice. For the first 14 days after your receptionist starts you can stop for any reason, paying only for the hours worked, and we refund any unused deposit, less third-party recruitment costs such as job ads. The same applies if the fit is wrong within the first 30 days, or we recruit a replacement at no extra cost instead. After that it is 30 days' notice, with no lock-in contract. If you also want the phone covered after close, the AI receptionist is from $89 a month plus setup.
Book a free discovery call
On a free 30-minute call, Jenn, DotVA's founder, works through your clinic's phone pattern with you. Useful things to have on hand: roughly how many calls go unanswered while everyone is in session, which disciplines share the line, and how much of your caseload arrives through NDIS plans or GP referrals. From that she can tell you whether a dedicated receptionist, after-hours AI, both, or a plain per-call service is the better fit, and what each would cost. You come away with figures, not paperwork to sign.
Want the wider picture first? The allied health VA guide covers claiming, NDIS admin and billing, and the virtual receptionist hub compares human and AI cover.
Ready now? Choose a time on the discovery call page.
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One step left: pick your time
Your details are with Jenn, but the call is not in her diary yet. Pick a time and it is locked in, about 20 seconds. Within 48 hours of the call you will have a written recap: the tasks we would delegate first, an indicative cost and a timeline.
Pick a time with Jenn now →Nothing that suits? Call (03) 9961 6076 and we will book it around you. Or leave it and Jenn will email you within one business day.
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Apply at apply.dotva.com.au →Actually a business looking to hire a VA? Call (03) 9961 6076 or email [email protected] and we will sort it out.