The right answer at 23:47, from your own price list.
Front Desk is the AI patient coordinator for clinics whose patients travel. You paid for the enquiry that arrives at 23:47, and the patient is comparing several clinics. Front Desk answers her on your WhatsApp number with the prices and dates you have signed off. With her agreement it keeps in touch while she decides, and it hands anything clinical to your coordinator.
We reply in writing within one working day. And for its first month Front Desk sends nothing: it drafts beside your coordinator, and you compare.
- Saturday
-
Hi, I’m in the UK and looking at a knee replacement abroad. Do you do them, and how much?
Susan, 23:47
-
Hello, this is the clinic. I’m its AI assistant, and a coordinator takes over whenever you’d like a person.
Yes. A total knee is €12,200source 1 all in: surgery, implant, anaesthetic, three nightssource 2 in a single room, physio and both transfers. The next surgical date is 14 Octobersource 3.
Which knee is it?23:48
- Tuesday
-
Hello again, Susan. Here is everything the price covers, and a secure link for the questions our surgeon asks before looking at a knee. Reply whenever suits you.
10:00, her time
- 1Price listTotal knee, signed off 12 Sept
- 2Package termsWhat the price includes
- 3Surgical calendarUpdated Friday
Illustration. The clinic, the patient and the prices are invented. Front Desk quotes only from the documents you give it.
Your desk is open 45 hours a week. Patients write in all 168.
A patient comparing clinics often messages several of them in the same evening. The clinic that answers properly while she still has her phone in her hand starts ahead. A desk open 09:00 to 18:00 answers her Friday-night message on Monday, 58 hours later. By then another clinic may already have sent her a price and a date.
Your desk45 hours a week
Answered from your price list168 hours a week
123hours a week with nobody answering: fifteen on each of four weeknights, and sixty-three from Friday evening to Monday morning.
Then the follow-up stops too soon. Each of those enquiries cost you an advert or a referral fee, and the decision takes weeks, often made with a husband, a wife or a grown-up child. A busy desk follows up once or twice, and then the enquiry goes quiet.
Sources. Arithmetic on a desk open 09:00–18:00, Monday to Friday: 5 × 9 = 45 of 168 hours; 4 × 15 + 63 = 123. The 58 hours run from Friday 23:00 to Monday 09:00.
One enquiry, six weeks, all in your clinic’s name.
It works from three things you give it, and nothing else, so every price and date traces to something your team signed off: your price list and surgical calendar, your surgeons’ questions, written down and signed off, and the limits on what it must never say, enforced by a separate system rather than by instructions to the AI.
Saturday, 23:47
Answers her with your price, what it covers and your next date.
Tuesday
Sends the details she asked for, at a sensible hour where she lives.
Week two
Sends a secure link to your surgeons’ questions, and tells Anna when her answers and X‑ray arrive.
Week six
She asks to speak to someone. It stops, and hands her to Anna, your coordinator, with a summary.
The same afternoon
Anna holds a date. The whole thread, X‑ray included, is on one record in your CRM.
If she goes quiet
With her agreement, it checks in five times over six months, then stops.
- 3 days
- 4 weeks
- 10 weeks
- 4 months
- 6 months
Illustration: the patient, the coordinator and the dates are invented. The follow-up intervals are the ones Front Desk is designed to use; we test them during your drafts-only month, before any patient receives one.
Try it on your own phone
A real WhatsApp conversation with an example clinic: the same code, a made-up price list. We only give the number out on request, because one safeguard is not finished yet: after a conversation passes to a person, it stops replying to later messages in that conversation and does not alert anyone, even if one is urgent. That is the first thing we are fixing.
It only says what you have signed off.
Every price and date it gives comes from a document you have signed off. If there is no source, it asks your team rather than guess. Clinical questions go to your people. The limits sit in a separate system that checks the AI, rather than in instructions the AI is asked to follow. Each reply is logged with the limits that applied at the time, so you can see what it said and why.
Could you do it for €10,000 if I book this week?
I can only quote the prices on our list, so I’ve asked Anna, who looks after pricing. She’ll reply by tomorrow evening.
My knee locks when I walk. Do you think I need a replacement?
That’s a question for the surgeon, not for me. I’ve passed your message to Anna, and she’ll arrange for the surgical team to reply.
Front Desk does this
- Quotes a price from your list, and says what it includes
- Offers dates from your calendar, for your coordinator to confirm
- Sends your surgeons’ questions through a secure form, and tells your team when answers and documents arrive
- Answers travel, transfer and recovery-logistics questions
- Reminds the patient, at a sensible pace, about anything a surgeon still needs
- Tells every patient, in its first message, that it is an AI working for your clinic
Only your clinicians do this
- Saying whether a patient is suitable, even as a hint
- Judging how urgent or how serious something is
- Reading an X‑ray, a scan or a blood result
- Advising on starting, stopping or timing a medication
- Naming a condition, or predicting how someone will recover
- Taking consent, or explaining the risks of a procedure
Illustrations. The patient, the prices and the coordinator are invented.
It sends nothing on its own until you allow it.
It moves up one step at a time. You decide when, and you sign each step off. If it breaks a limit, it drops back one step automatically, and we tell you first.
Drafts only
For the first month it drafts beside your coordinator and sends nothing. You compare the two.
You approve every message
It sends only what a coordinator has read and approved.
Answers the questions you list
It answers on its own for the questions you have listed, and asks about the rest.
Answers the rest, within the limits
It answers on its own across the enquiry, still inside the limits.
How many of your enquiries end in a booking?
If you are not sure, that is the first thing we measure. Here is an example from one sample month, scaled to 100 enquiries: most of the patients who wanted the procedure and could afford it still did not book.
Enquiries
100Wanted the procedure and could afford it
85Booked
3.5The dashed mark is 10 bookings: the ten per cent target the trade press publishes, nearly three times the example.
| A clinic getting | Bookings now | Enquiries lost | If it recovered 2% to 10% of them |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40 enquiries a month | 2 | 38 | +1 to +4 a month |
| 100 enquiries a month | 4 | 96 | +2 to +10 a month |
| 200 enquiries a month | 8 | 192 | +4 to +19 a month |
Sources. The funnel is a worked example from one sample month (85 enquiries, 72 able to proceed, 3 booked) scaled to 100; it is not an industry average, because no measured average exists to cite. Ten per cent: Rob Passmore, “Converting International Patient Inquiries @ 10%”, Medical Tourism Magazine, a target from experience, not a measured benchmark. The table is (enquiries − bookings) × 2% and × 10%, rounded: a model on a stated assumption, not a forecast. Before anything is built we measure your real response time and booking rate from your CRM, and report against them every month.
A flat monthly fee, installed and run for you.
We price it for your country, not ours. There is no charge per message and none per enquiry. We quote in writing before you commit to anything: ask for a written quote. Meta bills your own WhatsApp account for messages, and we estimate that cost for you first.
The fair comparison is what night and weekend staff would cost you, or what a facilitator takes from each patient. A software subscription is the wrong yardstick.
Two to four weeks to its first draft, then a month of drafts only before a patient sees anything it writes.
From your surgeons
Their questions, on paper
Written down with an owner and a date. Almost no clinic has these on paper.
From one person
Half a day a week
Someone who keeps prices, surgeons and procedures up to date.
From your accounts
Your number and CRM
The WhatsApp number and Meta Business account held by you, not an agency, and read access to the CRM so your baseline can be measured.
Built by a company that has been on the other side of these enquiries.
Thera Travel is a UK company that sends patients abroad for orthopaedic and dental treatment. We started building Front Desk after watching too many good clinics answer on Monday.
A word on these numbers first. They show we know this market and can do careful data work in it. They do not show that Front Desk books more patients. Nothing does yet, because it has no customers. Both can be counted on theratravel.co.uk today.
Thera also refers patients to clinics. Your prices, patients and conversations are never used for our referrals or our price comparisons, and Front Desk clinics are not promoted on our consumer site.
92
clinics profiled on theratravel.co.uk, across 12 countries
59
of them checked against official national registers
The answers your data protection officer will want, in writing.
The four questions a DPO asks first, answered here. The rest, and the documents you receive before deciding, are on one page you can forward.
Controller and processor
Your clinic is the controller. We act only on your documented instructions, under an agreement that names every sub-processor.
Where it runs
The AI runs inside the EU. WhatsApp message content is set to rest in Germany. Meta requires that setting before your number is registered, so we set it at install and show you.
Health data
It never asks for it in the chat. Your surgeons’ questions go through a secure form, which the patient fills in only after agreeing to share that information. Clinical detail sent in the chat anyway is passed to your team, not interpreted, and never repeated back on WhatsApp.
AI disclosure
It tells every patient, in its first message, that it is an AI working for your clinic.
Questions clinics ask
If yours is not here, email it to us and we will answer in writing.
Does this replace our coordinators?
No. It is an AI assistant on your coordination team. It covers the hours they cannot and the follow-up that gets postponed, and every conversation that needs a person goes to one, by name.
What happens to the WhatsApp on our coordinator’s phone?
Meta lets the WhatsApp Business app and Front Desk share one number, so your coordinators can keep the app they know. Before anything moves, we confirm in writing how that works for your number and what changes for your team.
Can’t we just switch on a free WhatsApp bot?
You can, and it will answer quickly. Ask it where a price came from, whether it will still be in touch in week six, and what it does with a clinical question. Front Desk answers only from your signed-off documents. With the patient’s agreement it follows up for six months on approved message templates. It hands clinical questions to your team, and it comes with the paperwork your DPO needs.
How much more will we convert?
We will not promise a figure we have not measured in your clinic. The table above is only arithmetic on one assumption. We measure your baseline first and report against it every month.
Does it answer the phone?
Not yet. Calls come after messaging, on a dedicated clinic number, with the same price list and the same limits. We switch them on once messaging has proved itself in your clinic.
What happens when it gets something wrong?
Every reply is logged with the limits that applied when it was sent, so what it said, and why, can be checked rather than argued about. If it breaks a limit, it drops back a step automatically, and you hear about it from us before anyone else.
Do you have customers yet?
No. Front Desk is new, and this page has no logos, testimonials or case studies because there are none. If that rules us out, we would rather you knew now.
Tell us how many enquiries you get, and who answers them now.
We reply in writing within one working day, with what your baseline probably looks like and what an install would involve. No call unless you want one, and nothing reaches a patient until you say so.
This opens an email with the questions we would ask anyway.
- Clinics treating patients who travel, with enquiries in English
- More enquiries each month than the team converts
- Surgeons willing to put their questions on paper
- Someone to keep the documents up to date, half a day a week