The physician-led practice focused first on operational problems, then layered AI into existing workflows to improve patient access, lower administrative costs and free staff to handle more complex patient needs.
Jamie Reddick, COO at Graybill Medical Group
For healthcare organizations struggling with staffing shortages and rising administrative demands, the front office increasingly has become one of the biggest obstacles to timely patient access.
Calls go unanswered. Patients abandon long hold queues. Appointment scheduling slows. Staff spend much of their day answering routine questions or processing repetitive requests instead of helping patients whose situations require judgment and empathy.
Tech alone not the answer
Artificial intelligence is often promoted as the answer. But at Graybill Medical Group, leaders concluded that technology alone would not solve the problem.
Instead, the physician-led medical group began by identifying the operational bottlenecks that were preventing patients from accessing care efficiently. Only after that work did the organization introduce AI to support existing workflows – not replace them.
The strategy produced measurable results. Graybill reported a 50% reduction in front-office costs, a 24% decrease in patient no-shows and significantly shorter call wait times while allowing communication center employees to spend more time helping patients with issues requiring human attention.
For Jamie Reddick, chief operating officer of the 94-year-old community practice, the experience reinforced a lesson she believes applies broadly across healthcare organizations exploring AI-enabled operations: Technology should support an operational strategy rather than become the strategy itself.
Looking beyond the technology
Graybill’s effort did not begin with a search for artificial intelligence. It began with the realization that its centralized communication center – the entry point for many patient interactions – was under increasing pressure.
Growing call volumes had created longer wait times and higher abandonment rates. Staff members spent substantial portions of their day completing routine administrative work, including scheduling appointments, routing calls, processing medical records requests and answering frequently asked questions.
Rather than relying on anecdotal complaints, leadership examined call wait times, abandonment rates, appointment access, no-show trends, staffing costs, patient complaints and employee feedback. Together, those measures pointed toward the communication center as an opportunity to strengthen both patient experience and operational efficiency.
Reddick said the communication center had become “the front door for many patient interactions” and that improving those workflows represented an opportunity to increase access, reduce costs and better support care teams.
The significance extended beyond one department. Leadership viewed communication center performance as closely connected to patient access, provider schedule utilization and the overall experience patients have when trying to reach the organization.
Starting with operations instead of software
Rather than purchasing software first, Graybill sought a vendor willing to understand its existing workflows before recommending technology.
According to Reddick, the organization deliberately avoided forcing employees to adapt to a new operating model. Instead, the vendor – Third Way Health, which combines AI agents and human expertise to manage front-office and administrative workflows – learned existing processes, identified inefficiencies and became an extension of operations rather than simply supplying software.
Only after that work was AI layered into the communication center. The technology assumed responsibility for repetitive, high-volume interactions such as appointment scheduling, answering common questions and directing patients to appropriate resources. Staff continued handling conversations requiring empathy, judgment and critical thinking.
Reddick said that collaborative approach strengthened adoption, eased change management and minimized disruption while improving the patient experience.
Measuring success in patient access
Graybill reported a 50% reduction in front-office costs, a 24% decrease in no-shows and substantially shorter call wait times.
Although the financial savings were meaningful, Reddick believes the reduction in missed appointments had the greatest organizational impact because it improved both patient care and operational performance.
Fewer missed appointments increased patient access, strengthened continuity of care and improved provider utilization without requiring additional clinical resources. From Graybill’s perspective, that outcome illustrates why administrative improvements can have direct clinical implications.
Advice for organizations considering AI
Looking back on the transformation, Reddick advises organizations to begin with the operational challenge rather than with AI itself.
She recommends engaging patients early, communicating changes clearly, measuring performance continuously and refining workflows after implementation instead of treating go-live as the finish line.
Organizations should evaluate success using measures such as call answer speed, abandonment rates, first-call resolution, appointment access, no-show rates, patient satisfaction, employee engagement, provider schedule utilization and cost per patient interaction.
Graybill’s experience suggests AI creates its greatest value when it supports well-designed operational workflows instead of driving them. By reducing repetitive administrative work while preserving human involvement where empathy and judgment matter most, the organization sought to improve patient access while building a more sustainable operating model.
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