Moonshot EHR includes an AI phone receptionist. The clinic buys a phone number inside Settings, forwards its line to it for overflow or after hours, and the assistant answers in the clinic's name, quotes services and prices from the clinic's own catalog, books real open slots on the clinic calendar, looks up and cancels appointments after verifying the caller, takes messages that become staff tasks, transfers to a person, and offers to text a confirmation. Every call lands in a log with a summary, an outcome and a link to the recording. It is priced as a package at $250 per month per location with 500 minutes included.
The first time I called it myself, it booked a DEXA scan, created the chart correctly, and asked whether I wanted a confirmation text. That call is the reason this guide exists. The second reason is that "AI receptionist" has become a category with a hundred vendors in it, and the brochures all say the same thing. What matters is narrower: does it book into your real calendar, what does it do with the caller's identity, and where does the call go afterward.
What happens on a call
It answers as your clinic. The opening line uses the greeting name you set and tells the caller the call may be recorded. If someone asks, it says it is the clinic's AI assistant. It does not pretend to be a person.
It knows your services because they are your services. The assistant reads the same service list, durations, prices and prep notes that your online booking page uses. It does not have a separate script to maintain. If a price is not in your catalog, it says the clinic will confirm rather than guessing.
It books real slots. Finding a time and booking call the same scheduling functions as the website booker, so provider hours, blackouts, capacity rules and your earliest-booking floor all apply. The appointment is on the calendar when the call ends, not in a queue for staff to re-enter. A caller the clinic has never seen gets a new chart labeled as created by the phone assistant.
It verifies before it reveals. The caller's number identifies a likely chart, but the assistant reads back nothing about appointments, date of birth, medications or results until the caller gives a date of birth that matches. It never confirms whether someone is a patient, and if a caller asks about another person it takes a message instead.
It looks up and cancels. After verification it can read back up to three upcoming visits and cancel one. A cancel goes through the calendar's own cancel path, so the patient's cancellation text and the audit entry fire exactly as if the front desk had done it. Rescheduling is a cancel followed by a new booking on the same call.
It takes messages that become tasks. A message creates a staff task with the callback number. If the call needs follow-up and no task exists, one is created automatically when the call ends.
It transfers when you want it to. Set a transfer number and the assistant can hand the caller to a person. Leave it blank and it takes a message instead.
It offers a confirmation text. After booking, it asks once whether to text a confirmation to the number on the line. The text only goes to that number, is skipped if the clinic's own automation already sent one, is blocked if that number has texted STOP, and is capped per handset per day.
What staff see afterward
The call log in Settings lists each call with time, caller number, the matched patient (or "no matching patient"), duration, a summary, and an outcome chip: Booked, Cancelled, Message taken, Transferred, Information only, or Abandoned. Each row links to the appointment it created, the task it opened, and the recording. There is no transcript to read through; the summary is the record, and the tasks are the work.
What the clinic controls
- The phone number, bought inside Settings by the owner after picking an area code. Forward your existing line to it for no-answer or after-hours coverage, or publish it directly.
- On or off, the greeting name, and the transfer number.
- A monthly minute cap. When it is reached the assistant still answers and takes messages but stops booking and cancelling until the next month.
- The earliest phone booking: a 60-minute floor that the clinic can raise to as much as seven days out.
- Clinic hours come from the clinic's hours settings and are read to callers; there is nothing extra to maintain.
What it refuses
The guardrails are the product as much as the booking is. The assistant gives no medical advice, does not discuss symptoms or interpret results, does not answer insurance questions, does not handle billing disputes or refunds, and never invents availability, prices or providers. Emergencies are told to hang up and call 911, then the call ends. Abusive callers are exited politely. Calls are capped at ten minutes and end after twenty seconds of silence. Today it speaks English only, and there is no separate voicemail mode: the assistant is the after-hours answer.
Built in vs a standalone AI answering vendor
The market has three shapes as of October 2026. Enterprise voice-agent companies such as Hello Patient, Assort Health and Luma Health sell quote-based deployments with deep integrations into Epic, athenahealth and similar systems. Small-practice SaaS tools sell flat plans, commonly in the $99 to $499 per month range according to buyer's guides, with integrations of varying depth. And a few EHRs now include a phone agent: Tebra advertises an AI voice assistant connected to its workflows, and athenahealth announced agentic patient communication tools in February 2026. Specialty EHRs for cash-pay clinics, including Cerbo, Jane, Practice Better and Healthie, list no native phone agent on their sites.
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| Option | Books into your EHR calendar? | Identity and chart handling | Published pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moonshot EHR phone assistant | Yes, same scheduling rules as the online booker; appointment is live when the call ends | Caller ID plus DOB verification against the chart; new callers get a chart; tasks and call log inside the EHR | $250/mo per location in the AI + receptionist package, 500 minutes included, $0.40/min after |
| Standalone enterprise voice agents (Hello Patient, Assort Health, Luma) | Through EHR integrations, depth varies by EHR | Vendor holds the conversation; sync back depends on the integration | Quote-based |
| Small-practice AI receptionist SaaS | Often collects details for staff, or writes via a connector | Vendor holds the conversation | Commonly $99 to $499/mo per buyer's guides |
| Tebra AI Voice Assistant | Connected to Tebra workflows (vendor claim) | Inside Tebra | Not published |
| Cerbo, Jane, Practice Better, Healthie | No native phone agent listed | Requires a third-party vendor | Vendor pricing on top of the EHR |
The practical test for any option is the same: call it, book something, and then look at your calendar and the patient's chart. If the appointment is there with the right patient, the vendor is doing the job. If it is in an email for staff to re-key, you have bought a transcription service.
Pricing
The phone assistant ships inside the AI + receptionist package at $250 per month per location. That package also includes the website chat and the staff AI assistant with $25 of monthly AI usage. The phone line includes 500 minutes per month, then $0.40 per minute. Only the clinic owner can accept the terms, the owner gets an email at 80 and 100 percent of included minutes, and overage is invoiced at the start of the next month at the rate the owner accepted.
Where Moonshot fits, honestly: if you run a multi-site group on an enterprise EHR, the enterprise voice vendors integrate more deeply with that EHR than a specialty platform will, and that is the right call. If you run a cash-pay clinic that misses calls between patients and after 5 p.m., the phone assistant inside Moonshot EHR books into your real calendar, verifies callers against your real charts, and costs less than the first week of a part-time receptionist. Try it on the demo line and check the calendar afterward.
Sources
Vendor materials checked October 14, 2026: Tebra AI Voice Assistant; athenahealth announcement, February 2026; Layer3 Labs buyer's guide (price range); Hello Patient and Assort Health profiles; Luma Health profile. Competitor descriptions summarize vendor-published material; features and prices change, so confirm with each vendor. Call recording and consent rules vary by state; the assistant announces recording at the start of every call, and you should confirm your own obligations with counsel. This guide is general information, not legal advice.