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A specialist practice's phones aren't like a GP clinic's. Referrals need checking before a booking is confirmed. Each specialist has their own appointment types and rules. And the call that matters most is the urgent one: a patient two days out of surgery and in pain, or one whose symptoms have got worse since their last appointment.
Medow Front Desk, our AI medical receptionist for specialist practices, knows which calls it can finish and which ones go straight to your team. Most AI receptionists sold in Australia weren't built that way: they started in GP clinics on Best Practice, in allied health clinics on Cliniko, or as voice platforms for tradies and real estate agents, with a healthcare version added later.
This guide compares Medow Front Desk, HealthEngine Helen, VoxWorks and Lyngo against what a specialist practice needs, and covers what to do now that Heidi Comms has gone. Medow has its own AI medical receptionist (made specifically for specialists - we call it 'Front Desk'), so we've held every option, ours included, to the same five questions.
Short answer: for specialist practices, Medow Front Desk, because it's built around referrals, each specialist's rules and urgent calls, and books straight into Genie, Gentu and HealthTrack. For GP practices on Best Practice or Pracsoft, HealthEngine Helen. For allied health on Cliniko, Lyngo.
Five questions worth asking before you sign anything:
Everything below about other providers comes from their own websites, checked in October 2026. Features change often, so confirm anything important in a demo.
Medow Front Desk is an AI receptionist made for specialist practices in Australia and New Zealand. It works alongside your reception team on your existing phone number, picks up several calls at once so nobody sits on hold, and can answer 24/7 rather than sending after-hours callers to voicemail.
Front Desk works out why the patient is calling and either completes the request or hands it to your team. It books and amends appointments, answers common questions about the practice, and asks for referral details in line with your referral policy before a booking is confirmed. Booking rules, appointment types and which calls come straight to your team can be set for each specialist, not just across the practice.
When a call needs a person, it goes to your team under the rules you set, with the reason for the call and the details already captured. The patient doesn't have to start again.
Front Desk books and amends appointments in your practice management software in real time, while the patient is on the call. Gentu and Genie are live, as is HealthTrack, with Elixir and Shexie coming soon. If your practice uses either of those, ask about timing when you book a demo.
Every practice is paired with a dedicated local Customer Success Manager, who sets Front Desk up around how your practice already works: your appointment types, each specialist's rules, your referral policy and which calls go straight to a person. Your team decides which calls it handles and what it says, and any change can be tested before patients hear it.
Every call is listed in the Front Desk dashboard with the reason, the outcome and a full transcript. Call recordings and transcripts hold patients' health information, so where they're kept matters: Front Desk keeps patient data in Australia, AES-256 encrypted in transit and at rest, and Medow is ISO 27001 certified.
The other receptionists in this guide are standalone products. Front Desk is part of Medow's platform for specialist practices, alongside an AI Scribe with Specialist-Grade AI and a dedicated model for each specialty, Voice Personalisation so every report and letter reads the way you write, and Smart Dictation. Medow's AI Scribe integrates with Genie, Gentu, Elixir, Shexie and Meditech.
For a specialist practice, that means one partner for the phones and the paperwork, one security review, and a Customer Success Manager who already knows how your practice runs. Front Desk is available monthly or annually, and you can try it risk-free for 60 days.
In practice: The Children's Clinic, Sydney. Twenty-two specialists across nine paediatric subspecialties book into the clinic's live Genie diary. Calls used to peak exactly when reception was busiest with patients in the room, so many went to voicemail, and an urgent post-procedure call waited in the same queue as a routine question about finding the clinic. Since Front Desk went live, every call has been answered, each one in under three seconds.
"Medow's AI receptionist has allowed us to handle a volume of calls that wasn't previously possible, and with staffing being the hardest thing in managing a busy specialist clinic, the AI receptionist has been an invaluable member of our team." Edana Chilchik, Practice Manager, The Children's Clinic, Sydney
Read The Children's Clinic case study
Best for: specialist practices that want an AI receptionist set up around their referral rules and specialists, from the same partner as their AI scribe and dictation.
Helen is the AI receptionist from HealthEngine, the Australian online booking platform. It answers calls 24/7, takes several calls at once, and books, reschedules and cancels appointments directly in the practice's software. It speaks more than 30 languages.
Helen handles admin calls only and never gives clinical advice or discusses symptoms. When a call needs a person, its Smart Transfers feature passes it to reception with the reason for the call and a summary on screen before your team picks up. HealthEngine describes Helen as built for GP practices, and it works with Best Practice and Pracsoft only. There is no published price; HealthEngine quotes after a free demo.
For a specialist practice, the limit is that software list. Unless your practice runs Best Practice or Pracsoft, Helen won't book into your diary.
Best for: GP practices on Best Practice or Pracsoft, especially those already using HealthEngine for online bookings.
VoxWorks is an Australian-owned AI voice company. Its AI medical receptionist answers calls 24/7 for GP, specialist and allied health clinics, handles bookings and changes, and runs recall and reminder campaigns. For anything clinical or urgent it passes the call on the way your practice tells it to, rather than assessing symptoms.
It lists Best Practice, MedicalDirector, Cliniko, Genie and HotDoc, stores call recordings and transcripts on Australian servers, and is ISO 27001 certified. Plans are A$49, A$149, A$349 and A$999 a month plus GST, depending on call minutes, each with a 14-day free trial and no setup fee.
Medical is one of several markets VoxWorks serves, alongside real estate, trades, legal, insurance and car dealerships. That keeps it affordable and quick to start, but you sign up yourself and write the scripts and the rules for urgent calls, which is a lot to take on for a practice with several specialists and referral rules.
Best for: practices that want clear published pricing and are comfortable configuring the system themselves.
Lyngo is an Australian AI receptionist for allied health. It answers calls 24/7, books, reschedules and cancels appointments, and transfers clinical questions, billing issues and complaints to the right person with a summary. It focuses on physio, chiro, osteo, podiatry, psychology and speech pathology, and connects to Cliniko, Nookal, PracSuite and Splose.
Pricing is published: A$139 to A$880 a month plus GST depending on call volume, with free setup by Lyngo, a 14-day free trial and no lock-in contract.
If you run an allied health practice on one of those systems, Lyngo belongs on your shortlist. It isn't designed for medical specialist practices, and it doesn't list the practice management software they typically use.
Best for: allied health practices on Cliniko, Nookal, PracSuite or Splose.
Heidi is best known in Australia for its AI scribe, and for a while it also offered an AI receptionist here called Heidi Comms. It is no longer sold to Australian practices: the Australian product page has been taken down, and Heidi now markets Comms in the UK, the US and Canada.
If you were weighing up Heidi Comms, put the five questions at the top of this guide to whatever you choose instead.
And if you wanted your scribe and your receptionist from one company, Medow offers both: an AI Scribe built for each specialty and Front Desk, looked after by the same Customer Success team.
Some practices weigh up a receptionist service instead. OfficeHQ and Avant's Remote Reception are two of the best known in Australia, with trained receptionists who answer your calls during set hours, take messages and manage bookings. OfficeHQ also offers an AI phone answering service that picks up 24/7, answers common questions and hands over to a live receptionist when needed. It's built for businesses in general rather than specialist medical practices. We compare the options in our virtual medical receptionist guide.
Answering a call and booking an appointment is the easy part, and most of these tools can do it. The hard part in a specialist practice is everything around it: checking the referral, applying each specialist's rules, recognising the post-operative patient who needs a nurse today, and putting the booking straight into Genie, Gentu or HealthTrack. That is the job Front Desk is set up for, by a Customer Success Manager who learns how your practice runs, on the same platform that already writes your reports and letters.
See how Medow Front Desk works for specialist practices, or book a demo for your practice.
An AI medical receptionist is software that answers a practice's phone calls and talks to patients the way a receptionist would. It can book and change appointments, answer common questions and pass calls to staff when a person is needed. The better ones connect to your practice management software, so bookings go straight into the diary.
No. A virtual medical receptionist is usually a human receptionist working remotely for several practices. An AI receptionist is software: it can answer several calls at once and work outside opening hours, and a good one hands calls to your own team when they need a person.
For specialist practices, the deciding factors are referral handling, rules for each specialist, getting urgent clinical calls to your team, and a live connection to your practice management software. Medow Front Desk is built specifically for specialist practices in Australia and New Zealand, and it sits on the same platform as Medow's AI Scribe and Smart Dictation, which is why it's our pick.
Some do, so check what is live rather than planned. Medow Front Desk books straight into Genie, Gentu and HealthTrack today, with Elixir and Shexie coming soon. VoxWorks also lists Genie. Medow's AI Scribe integrates with Genie, Gentu, Elixir, Shexie and Meditech.
Yes. Front Desk introduces itself as soon as it answers, so patients know who they are talking to, and anyone who would rather speak to a person can ask at any time. Every call is recorded and transcribed for your team.
With Front Desk, your team can read the full transcript of any call, follow up with the patient, and change what Front Desk says, testing the fix before patients hear it. Whichever option you look at, ask the same two things: can you see every call, and how quickly can you change what it says?
Front Desk is built to work alongside your reception team, not instead of it. It picks up the calls your team can't get to, several at once at busy times and after hours, and hands anything that needs a person to your team with the details already captured. That leaves your team free for the patients in front of them.
Published plans in Australia start at A$49 a month (VoxWorks) and A$139 a month (Lyngo), both plus GST and rising with call volume. Others, including HealthEngine Helen, quote after a demo. Medow Front Desk is billed monthly or annually, priced on your number of specialists and how many calls you get, with no lock-in contract and 60 days risk-free. Book a demo for a quote.
No. Heidi Comms is no longer sold to Australian practices, and Heidi now markets it in the UK, the US and Canada. The options above cover the same job, and Medow pairs Front Desk with an AI scribe built for each specialty.
