Call it. It thinks you are a patient.
TODO: pharmacy demo phone number
Ask whether a refill is ready, then ask it something clinical and watch what it refuses to do. The second half is the part worth listening to.
Pharmacies
Your pharmacist is interrupted six to eight times an hour at peak.
Being interrupted mid-count is not a service problem, it is a dispensing safety problem. Seventy percent of those calls are three questions a machine can answer.
Demo
Hear it answer a call.
Two ways to judge this before you talk to us. Both are the same system a patient would reach.
A refill call, start to finish.
TODO: /public/audio/demo-refill-call.mp3. Do not substitute the dental recording here.
Unedited, including the pauses. If it does not clear your bar, do not buy it.
The problem
What the phone is already costing you.
The counter is where the money and the risk both are, and the phone pulls a pharmacist off it every eight minutes.
Seventy percent of calls are three things: is my refill ready, a refill request, and a vaccine question. None of the three needs a pharmacist.
| Measure | Baseline |
|---|---|
| Calls per day | ~120 |
| Call abandonment | 19% |
| Abandonment during the Oct–Nov vaccination rush | 34% |
| Pharmacist interruptions per hour at peak | 6–8 |
Worked example, not a client account
These are modelled from typical pharmacy volumes, not measured at a named pharmacy. They are here to show the shape of the problem, not to claim a result. During the measurement week we replace every one of them with your own numbers.
What it does
What it does.
How much of this you get depends on what your pharmacy software will let anything else talk to. The two cards marked below are the ones that depend on it.
Refill status
The caller is verified first, then the system checks the pharmacy software and says whether it is ready, in progress, or waiting on the prescriber.
Depends on your softwareRefill requests
Entered into the fill queue with the prescription number, or captured and passed to staff as a structured message where writing into the queue is not possible.
Depends on your softwareBooking
Vaccinations, medication reviews and minor ailment consultations, into the pharmacist's calendar with the correct appointment lengths, plus a confirmation text and a day-before reminder.
The standard questions
Hours, delivery, vaccine availability, what to bring, whether you take a particular plan.
Overflow
Calls that would have been abandoned get answered instead. Every line at once, so nobody waits behind three other callers.
Limits
What it will not do.
In a pharmacy this list matters more than the one above it.
- Give clinical advice. Any question about a drug, a dose, an interaction or a symptom goes to a pharmacist.
- Discuss prescription details before verifying the caller.
- Handle controlled substance queries. Those transfer immediately.
- Take prescription transfers from other pharmacies. Pharmacist to pharmacist, always.
Calls still transferred to a human
21%
Higher than the dental figure, and correctly so. A pharmacy has more calls that genuinely need a pharmacist. We publish it for the same reason: anyone quoting zero is not measuring it.
Integration
Your pharmacy software, and what it decides.
Integration depth varies far more here than in dental, and it decides what you actually get.
- Kroll
- Nexxsys
- PharmaClik
- Fillware
- Assyst Rx-A
Dental practice software is broadly willing to let a booking be written into it. Pharmacy software is not built on that assumption, and reading a live fill queue is a much harder problem than writing an appointment. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not tried it.
So there are two tiers, and which one you are on is a fact about your software rather than a price we are choosing.
Full
Refill status lookup and refill requests into the fill queue.
Requires a workable integration path into your software. This is the tier every pharmacist asks about first, and it is the one we will not promise before we have looked at your setup.
Reduced
Booking, standard questions, overflow and after-hours coverage.
Refill requests are captured and passed to your staff as a structured message rather than written into the queue directly. Refill status is not answered by the system at all. This tier is worth having on its own, and it is what most pharmacies will start on.
We determine which tier applies during the measurement week, before you commit to anything. You will be told it is the reduced tier at that point, not halfway through a build.
TODO: confirm which pharmacy systems we have a working integration path for. Until one is proven at a real pharmacy, full-tier refill lookup stays described as "assessed during the measurement week" and is not presented as a shipped capability.
Caller verification
Verifying the caller.
Nothing about a prescription is said out loud until the system knows who it is talking to.
- The caller is asked for a set of identifiers before any prescription is discussed. Failing to answer them is not a small obstacle to get past; it ends that line of conversation.
- Nothing about a prescription is disclosed before verification passes. Not whether it is ready, not what it is, not whether the person is a patient of yours.
- A failed verification transfers to your staff. The system does not offer retries against personal health information, and it does not let a caller work through possibilities to find one that lands.
- Verification steps are logged with the rest of the call record, so you can audit what was asked and what was disclosed.
TODO: confirm the implemented verification method before publishing specifics here. Describe the rules, not the identifiers, until the build is done.
Privacy
Privacy and data handling.
Short version, because the long version belongs in a contract and not on a landing page.
- Reviewed against PHIPA and the provincial equivalents, plus PIPEDA, before go-live rather than after.
- Where call audio, transcripts and patient details are processed and stored is written down and given to you before you sign anything.
- Defined retention limits, with access logged.
- Callers are told at the start of the call that they are speaking to an automated system.
TODO: same data residency verification as the dental page. Publish no claim about where data is processed until confirmed with Retell AI and the model provider.
Price
What the measurement week costs.
$500 CAD, fixed.
- The fee is credited against the pilot if you go ahead.
- The report is yours either way, including if you decide to do nothing with it.
- No retainer, no contract to sign before the report exists.
The measurement week
Start with your own numbers, not ours.
You should not buy this on the strength of modelled figures. This is how you get real ones.
- Week 1
Measurement
We pull your call logs: abandonment rate, calls by hour, the vaccination-season peak, what people are calling about, and how many callers hung up without reaching anyone. You also get an assessment of what your pharmacy software allows, which is what decides your tier.
- Days 1–30
Pilot
It runs on one line alongside your existing phones. Nothing gets switched off. If it does not work, you unplug it.
- Day 30
Your numbers
The same before-and-after table, with your figures in it instead of modelled ones.
If the baseline turns out to be fine, we will tell you, and you have saved a purchase.
Timeline: Going live takes around seven weeks after the measurement week. Most of that is the software integration and the identity verification, which you do not rush in a pharmacy.
FAQ
Questions pharmacists ask us.
What if the caller asks a clinical question anyway?
It does not attempt an answer, including an obvious one. Any question about a drug, a dose, an interaction or a symptom goes to a pharmacist, with what the caller has already said passed along so they are not asked to repeat it.
How do you verify someone before discussing their prescription?
The caller answers a set of identifiers before anything about a prescription is discussed, and a failure transfers to your staff rather than offering another attempt. The system does not let someone try combinations until one works. Every verification step is logged with the call.
Does it work with my pharmacy software?
That is the question that decides what you get, and we will not answer it from a website. We look at your setup during the measurement week and tell you which tier you are on before you commit. If refill status cannot be read out of your software, you will hear that in week one.
What happens during the vaccination rush?
That is the period the system is worth most, because it answers every line at once and does not get slower as the queue grows. Booking a flu shot and asking about availability are two of the three things it handles without a pharmacist.
Will it handle narcotics or controlled substance calls?
No. Those transfer immediately, without discussion and without confirming anything about the prescription.
Does it take transfers from other pharmacies?
No. Pharmacist to pharmacist, always. It takes the caller's name and number and passes the call.
What about French, or callers with strong accents?
Accents are where it fails most often, and it fails by asking people to repeat themselves. After two failed attempts it hands the call to your staff rather than guessing, which matters more here than it does in a dental office. It can take calls in French, and we test that on your own calls during the pilot rather than assuming it works.
Can I turn it off?
Yes. It runs on one line beside your existing phones, so turning it off means pointing that line back where it was. Nothing in your current setup gets removed to make room for it.
Find out how many calls you are missing.
The measurement week is a fixed fee and the report is yours whether or not you build anything with us.