It was 4:47 PM on a Friday. The kind of afternoon where your front desk is already mentally checked out, thinking about weekend plans. That’s when a 67-year-old patient called one of our client practices, describing what sounded like a curtain falling over her vision.

Retinal detachment. Maybe. Hopefully not.

The office was winding down. The optometrist had one patient left. The receptionist was handling a billing question. And this call—this one that could determine whether someone kept their sight—was about to go to voicemail.

Except it didn’t. Our agent picked it up on the second ring.

Not Every Call Is Created Equal

Here’s the thing most call services get wrong: they treat every call the same. Appointment request? Same script. Billing question? Same script. Patient describing flashes and floaters that started two hours ago? Same script.

That’s a problem. Because a patient calling about new glasses can wait until Monday. A patient experiencing sudden vision changes cannot.

We train our agents to recognize the difference. And more importantly, we train them on your specific protocols for handling each situation.

For the practices we work with, that usually looks something like this:

True emergencies (flashes, floaters, sudden vision loss, eye trauma, foreign objects): Same-day scheduling, period. If you’re booked solid, we work with your team to figure out how to fit them in. If you absolutely can’t, we provide clear guidance on emergency care options—not a generic “go to the ER” brush-off.

Urgent but not emergency (mild discomfort, follow-up concerns, red eye): We assess the urgency and schedule appropriately. Sometimes that’s same-day, sometimes it’s next available. Depends on what you’ve told us and what the patient describes.

The woman with the curtain over her vision? Our agent got her in that evening. Turns out it was a retinal tear. The doctor referred her to a retina specialist that night. She kept her vision.

That’s not a sales pitch. That’s what happens when your phone gets answered by someone who knows what to listen for.

Training That Actually Matters

I’ve seen the “training” some call centers do. A two-hour webinar, maybe a quiz at the end, and then agents are thrown on the phones. That doesn’t work for healthcare. It especially doesn’t work for eye care, where the stakes can be this high.

Our onboarding process takes time. Real time. Because we’re not just teaching scripts—we’re teaching judgment.

Every agent who handles calls for an eye care practice learns:

We run role-playing scenarios. A lot of them. We throw curveballs—patients who downplay symptoms, patients who catastrophize minor issues, patients who are hard to understand. By the time an agent starts handling live calls, they’ve practiced the hard conversations.

And even then, we’re monitoring. Our AI tools flag calls where something might have been handled differently. We review them. We coach. We improve.

What Actually Happened With That Friday Call

Let me finish the story, because the details matter.

When our agent recognized the urgency, she didn’t just book an appointment. She called the office directly—interrupted the optometrist mid-exam—to explain what she was hearing. She relayed the patient’s symptoms accurately (because she’d asked the right questions). She confirmed transportation (the patient couldn’t drive with half her vision gone). She gave the patient clear instructions on what to do if symptoms worsened before the appointment.

The in-office team knew exactly what was coming. They were ready.

That coordination doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because we’ve built relationships with the teams we support, because we understand their workflows, and because we’ve trained for exactly these moments.

The Calls That Don’t Make Headlines

Not every emergency is dramatic. Sometimes it’s a contact lens wearer who fell asleep in their lenses and woke up with an angry red eye. Sometimes it’s a kid who got poked during a basketball game. Sometimes it’s a post-surgical patient who’s worried about a symptom that’s probably normal but needs reassurance.

These calls matter too. They might not be sight-threatening, but they’re anxiety-producing for the patient. And how we handle them shapes how patients feel about your practice.

We don’t rush these calls. We don’t make patients feel stupid for calling. We listen, we reassure when appropriate, we escalate when necessary. And we always—always—document what was discussed so your team knows what happened.

The Technology Behind The Human Touch

Look, we’re not anti-technology. We use AI to monitor call quality. We track metrics like response time, appointment conversion, and follow-up completion. We record calls for training and quality assurance.

But technology is a tool, not a replacement. The AI tells us which calls to review. It doesn’t tell the patient everything’s going to be okay. It doesn’t recognize the slight tremor in someone’s voice that suggests they’re more scared than they’re letting on.

The human judgment, the empathy, the clinical awareness—that’s what matters when seconds count.

What This Means For Your Practice

You can’t predict emergencies. You can’t prevent the urgent call from coming in at the worst possible moment. But you can make sure someone qualified is there to handle it.

Your staff can focus on the patients in front of them. Your phones don’t go to voicemail during lunch. Your after-hours calls get triaged properly instead of piling up as messages to deal with tomorrow.

And when something serious comes through—when someone’s vision is on the line—you have a team that treats it with the urgency it deserves.

Want to see how this would work for your practice? We’re happy to walk through your specific protocols and show you exactly how we’d handle your calls.

Need help managing your practice’s calls and scheduling? Book a discovery call to learn how MyBCAT can help.