A chiropractor virtual receptionist who books the caller while you adjust.
A chiro day is a string of short visits, and the phone keeps ringing straight through them. It rings hardest before work and after it, the same hours your table is booked back to back. Someone whose back locked up getting out of bed will not sit through a voicemail greeting at 7:40am; they tap the next clinic in the map results. A chiro virtual receptionist puts a trained person on that line, so the call ends with a time in the diary instead of a message nobody has a spare minute to return.
What a chiro receptionist takes on, and what stays with the chiropractor
Type chiro answering service into Google and you mostly find call centres that take messages, plus a fresh crop of AI voice bots. What DotVA places is a different thing: one person, dedicated to your clinic, who learns your diary and the questions your patients usually ask, and who works to a written line between front-desk tasks and anything clinical. You agree that line with us before the first call is answered.
On the receptionist's desk
Bookings and recalls
- Live answering in your clinic's name from open to close, with callers given a confirmed time on the spot instead of a promise that someone will ring back
- New-patient enquiries: how long the first visit runs, your published fees, parking and what to wear, all from answers you have approved, ending in a booked initial consult
- Care-plan scheduling: the visits the chiropractor has recommended booked at the set frequency, and any missed visit rebooked the same day
- Reactivation calls: patients who have dropped off the schedule rung from your lapsed-patient report, using a script you sign off
- Cancellations, confirmations and reminders, with freed slots offered to the waitlist and each outcome noted in your software
- HICAPS and health-fund questions taken down in full and passed to your team, never answered on the call
Stays with the chiropractor
Clinical and compliance calls
- Anything clinical: symptoms, whether chiro suits a condition, what an adjustment involves, and questions about children or pregnancy all go to a practitioner
- Visit frequency and plan changes: decided by the chiropractor alone; the receptionist books them and never recommends them
- Extras limits, rebates and gap amounts: logged as a question for your team or the patient's fund to answer
- Advertising and compliance wording: scripts carry no testimonials and no promises about results, in line with AHPRA's advertising rules, and any wording question comes back to you
- Urgent calls: handled through the escalation steps your clinic writes down, not a receptionist's own judgement
- The HICAPS terminal itself, which needs somebody standing at your front counter
Phones are only one part of the admin a chiro clinic carries. Claiming reconciliation, gap-payment follow-up and the new-year push when many patients' extras limits reset are covered on the broader virtual assistant for chiropractors guide. Other health settings have receptionist pages of their own: the physio virtual receptionist for rehab-heavy clinics, the medical virtual receptionist for GP rooms, and the dental virtual receptionist for practices built on hygiene recalls.
Where a chiro clinic's phone quietly loses bookings
The before-work new patient
At 7:30am you are already on your second adjustment when a first-time caller rings, stiff and keen to be seen today. Nobody picks up, and plenty of callers in that state ring the next clinic rather than leave a message. Answered live, the receptionist explains how an initial visit works, offers the earliest new-patient time, books it and sends your intake form before the call wraps up.
Care plans that only exist on paper
The chiropractor recommends a run of visits, the patient books the next one on the way out, and the rest never reaches the diary. Your receptionist closes that gap by booking the recommended visits at the frequency the chiropractor set and chasing a missed appointment that same day, so a plan does not quietly fade after the third visit.
Lapsed patients one phone call away
Every clinic has a list of people who were happy with their care, drifted off the schedule, and would come back if someone rang. The receptionist works that report in the quiet stretches between calls, using wording you approve: a friendly check-in and an offer of a time, with no health claims and no pressure. It is exactly the job that never happens while the front counter is flat out.
Booked in the system you already run
Appointments go straight into Cliniko, Nookal, Zanda (formerly Power Diary) or Jane through a scoped login your clinic owns. There is no side spreadsheet and no end-of-day re-keying, and the SMS reminders you already rely on keep going out, which is what keeps no-shows in check.
What chiro phone cover costs
Cover both ends of the day
Chiro phones peak early, as patients try to squeeze a visit in before work, and again from mid-afternoon into the evening. Staffing 6:30 to 9:30am and 3:30 to 6:30pm on weekdays comes to 30 hours a week, about $1,559-2,208 a month at $12-17/hr AUD ex GST. A full 40-hour week is about $2,078-2,944 a month.
An answering service only takes messages
A message service jots down a name and number, and you ring back between adjustments, often after the caller has booked somewhere else. A dedicated receptionist books into Cliniko, Nookal or Zanda while the caller is still on the line, so the enquiry is an appointment before you are off the table.
Start with one window
Placements start at 10 hours a week, about $520-736 a month, enough for 7 to 9am every weekday. Twenty hours, two at each end of every weekday, is about $1,040-1,470 a month. Monthly figures multiply your weekly hours by the hourly rate and 4.33 weeks.
Leave and sick days
When your receptionist is away, we arrange a substitute wherever we can, briefed on your booking rules, and the AI receptionist can take overflow. You direct the day-to-day work; we handle recruitment, pay, performance and replacement.
Chiropractor virtual receptionist questions
Can a chiro virtual receptionist book directly into Cliniko, Nookal or Zanda?
Yes. Your receptionist works in whichever practice management system the clinic already uses, whether that is Cliniko, Nookal, Zanda (the software formerly called Power Diary) or Jane, through a staff login your clinic creates, limits and can switch off whenever it likes. New-patient appointment types, standard adjustment lengths and each chiropractor's availability behave exactly as they are set up today. Automated SMS reminders keep sending, a short admin note records what each caller wanted, and no second booking system gets bolted on beside the one your team already trusts.
Will the receptionist talk to patients about their pain, posture or treatment?
No, never. The receptionist is front-desk support, not a practitioner, so every clinical question is passed to the chiropractor: whether a symptom needs looking at, whether chiropractic suits a particular complaint, what happens during an adjustment, and anything involving children, pregnancy or a recent injury. The caller is offered a time with the chiropractor or a call back from them, and their question is written down in their own words. If a call sounds urgent, the receptionist follows the escalation steps your clinic has put in writing instead of making a judgement of their own. Scripts are also written with AHPRA's advertising rules in mind, so they contain no testimonials and make no promises about results.
Can the receptionist handle care-plan bookings and lapsed-patient calls?
Yes, and in most chiro clinics that is where a good share of the hours go. Once the chiropractor has set a visit frequency, the receptionist books the run of appointments to match and rebooks any visit that gets missed, so the plan sits in the diary rather than on a printout the patient takes home. They also work the lapsed-patient report in your software, ringing people who have not been in for a set number of weeks and offering them a time. Frequency stays the chiropractor's decision: the receptionist schedules what has been recommended and never suggests, sells or explains a plan.
How is this different from a chiropractor answering service?
An answering service writes down a name, a number and a reason for calling, then sends you the list to work through between patients. By the time you ring back, the person with the stiff neck may well have booked with whichever clinic picked up. A DotVA receptionist is one dedicated person who knows your clinic, can see your diary and books the caller into a real appointment before they hang up. It is also a human voice rather than an AI one; the AI receptionist is a separate option for the hours after you close.
Where does the receptionist work from, and can they cover early mornings?
Your receptionist is based in the Philippines and works to your clinic's Australian hours, not their own. Early starts are the part worth planning: 7am in Melbourne is 5am in Manila, or 4am while daylight saving runs, so a before-work shift is written into the role when we recruit and the person you interview has already agreed to it. Evening cover is simpler, because a 6:30pm finish on the east coast lands mid-to-late afternoon in Manila. Recruitment, onboarding and billing are handled by DotVA's Australian team in Melbourne.
What does a chiro virtual receptionist cost, and what are the terms?
The dedicated receptionist is $12-17 an hour AUD ex GST, billed on the hours you book. Placements start at 10 hours a week, about $520-736 a month, and a full 40-hour week comes to about $2,078-2,944 a month. Matching usually takes about 7-10 business days, and a $500 deposit is credited to your first invoice. There is no lock-in: in the first 14 days after your receptionist starts you can end it at any time, after that it is 30 days' notice, and if the fit is wrong within the first 30 days we find a replacement free. After-hours AI cover starts at $89 a month plus setup.
Book a free discovery call
It is a 30-minute conversation with Jenn, who runs DotVA from Melbourne. Come with a rough count of the calls that ring out before 9am, and a sense of how many patients have slipped off their care plans this year. From there Jenn can tell you whether a dedicated receptionist, after-hours AI or both would suit your clinic, and what each would cost. You leave with numbers, and there is nothing to sign.
Reading first? The chiropractor VA guide covers the wider admin load, and the virtual receptionist overview compares human and AI cover.
Or go straight to the discovery call page and pick a time.
Step 2 of 2
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.
Looking for a VA job?
This form books a call with our client team.
It won't reach our hiring team, so it can't book you an interview. DotVA hires virtual assistants from the top 1% through a separate application system. If you think that's you, apply there with your resume, a short video and (if you have one) a little portfolio.
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.