AI Phone Automation for Altera TouchWorks

Why Altera TouchWorks Practices Are Losing Patients on the Phone

Altera TouchWorks—formerly Allscripts TouchWorks before the Allscripts/Veradigm corporate restructuring—is one of the most comprehensive enterprise ambulatory EHR platforms in American healthcare. Used by thousands of providers in large physician groups, multi-specialty organizations, and health systems nationwide, TouchWorks is built for complex clinical workflows: customizable documentation templates, interoperability across care settings, and deep practice management capabilities that smaller EHR systems can't match.

But TouchWorks wasn't designed to manage your phones. And in most TouchWorks practices, the phone system is the weakest link in the entire clinical operation—a gap where patient communications get lost between the caller and the EHR, staff burn out from relentless call volume, and documentation standards that TouchWorks enforces inside the chart don't extend to the interactions happening over the phone.

This guide explains how AI-powered clinical communication infrastructure integrates with Altera TouchWorks to close that gap—turning every patient call into a structured, documented, routable clinical task that flows into your EHR automatically.

The Phone Problem in TouchWorks Practices

TouchWorks practices tend to be larger, higher-volume operations—multi-provider groups, multi-site health systems, enterprise organizations with complex departmental structures. The phone volume scales accordingly. Here's what the daily workflow looks like:

1. A patient calls the office
2. A staff member answers—if they can. Other lines are ringing, patients are at the check-in window, and prior authorizations need processing
3. The staff member listens, takes notes on paper, a sticky note, or a separate messaging system
4. They log into TouchWorks, locate the patient's chart, and manually create a task or telephone encounter
5. The task is routed to the correct provider or department—assuming staff knows the routing rules for that particular request type
6. The provider reviews the task (often hours later), makes a clinical decision, and documents the response
7. Someone calls the patient back with the provider's answer

Every step is manual, interruptible, and error-prone. In enterprise-scale TouchWorks environments with multiple departments, locations, and on-call rotations, the complexity compounds. Tasks get mis-routed across departments. After-hours calls fall into voicemail. Messages get abbreviated or paraphrased, losing the patient's actual words and the clinical nuance that matters for triage.

The result: 30–50% of front-desk staff time consumed by phone-related tasks, providers interrupted by callback requests throughout the day, and a growing volume of undocumented patient communications that create both quality concerns and liability exposure.

How CallMyDoc Integrates with Altera TouchWorks

CallMyDoc integrates with TouchWorks to automate the entire journey from patient call to documented clinical task. The integration is designed for the enterprise-scale complexity that TouchWorks practices operate in—multi-department routing, multi-site coverage, and high call volumes that would overwhelm manual workflows.

Here's what the integration does:

Automatic Patient Identification

When a patient calls, CallMyDoc's AI identifies them by date of birth and matches them to their TouchWorks record. No manual chart lookup. No asking the patient to spell their name while three other lines ring. The system knows who's calling and pulls their clinical context before a staff member ever gets involved.

In large TouchWorks practices handling 200–500+ calls per day across multiple departments, this eliminates one of the most time-consuming steps in every phone interaction: patient identification and chart navigation. That's hours of cumulative staff time saved daily on identification alone.

Clinical Task Creation

Every call is transcribed, categorized into one of 12 clinical request types, and documented in TouchWorks as a structured clinical task. The categories include:

• Prescription refills—routed to the prescribing provider with medication details and patient context
• Appointment requests—patients can self-schedule in under 40 seconds without navigating a patient portal
• Symptom reports—flagged with urgency level and routed to the appropriate clinical team
• Lab and test result inquiries—directed to the ordering provider or results management queue
• Referral requests—routed to the referral coordinator with relevant clinical details
• Insurance and billing questions—sent to the billing department without consuming clinical staff time
• Callback requests—queued with priority level, patient context, and timestamps

Each task appears in the correct provider's or department's TouchWorks task queue with the patient's actual words, AI-generated categorization, urgency assessment, and millisecond timestamps. No sticky notes. No callback logs. No manual transcription from one system to another.

Provider Response Workflow

Providers don't need to learn a new system. Tasks from patient calls appear in their TouchWorks workflow alongside other clinical items. They review, respond, and close—and the entire interaction chain is documented in the patient's chart as a single, timestamped thread.

For prescription refills, providers can approve directly from their mobile device in under 30 seconds—no need to log into TouchWorks on a desktop, navigate through multiple screens, and process the refill manually. The approval is documented in the patient's record automatically.

After-Hours Coverage

TouchWorks doesn't provide native after-hours call handling. When the office closes, patient calls typically go to voicemail or a traditional answering service—neither of which feeds back into TouchWorks. For enterprise organizations with complex on-call rotations spanning multiple departments and locations, the after-hours gap is even more pronounced.

CallMyDoc's after-hours platform handles this seamlessly:

• After-hours calls are processed with the same AI transcription and categorization as daytime calls
• On-call providers see patient chart summaries on their mobile devices—no separate login required
• Urgent calls are escalated immediately with full clinical context
• Routine calls are documented for next-business-day review
• On-call schedules support rotating coverage across multiple providers, departments, and locations—matching the organizational complexity of enterprise TouchWorks deployments
• Every after-hours interaction is documented in TouchWorks automatically

What TouchWorks Practices Can Automate

The integration replaces multiple manual phone-to-EHR workflows with automated processes:

Prescription Refill Workflow

Before: Patient calls → staff takes message → staff enters refill request in TouchWorks → provider navigates to patient chart → provider approves → staff calls patient back. Time: 15–30 minutes per refill across multiple staff members and systems.

After: Patient calls → CallMyDoc transcribes and categorizes as refill request → task created in TouchWorks → provider approves on mobile in 30 seconds → patient notified. Time: under 2 minutes, zero staff involvement.

Appointment Scheduling

Before: Patient calls → staff searches for availability across providers and locations → back-and-forth on dates and times → staff books in TouchWorks → confirmation call or manual reminder entry. Time: 5–10 minutes per scheduling call.

After: Patient calls → CallMyDoc offers self-scheduling in under 40 seconds → appointment booked → automated dual reminders sent at 7 days and 1 day before the visit, reducing no-shows by up to 40%. Time: 40 seconds, zero staff involvement.

Symptom Reporting and Clinical Triage

Before: Patient calls with symptoms → staff takes abbreviated notes → staff creates task in TouchWorks → task may be mis-routed in a multi-department environment → provider reviews hours later, possibly with incomplete clinical information.

After: Patient calls → CallMyDoc captures exact words and clinical details → AI categorizes urgency → task routed to the correct provider or department → urgent cases escalated immediately with full context.

After-Hours Urgent Calls

Before: Patient calls after hours → voicemail or answering service → message delivered next morning (or lost) → no TouchWorks documentation → no audit trail.

After: Patient calls → CallMyDoc processes and categorizes → urgent calls escalated to on-call provider immediately with chart context → provider responds from mobile → entire interaction documented in TouchWorks with millisecond timestamps.

Real-World Scale

CallMyDoc has been validated across practices of every size—from small offices to enterprise health systems with complexity levels that match TouchWorks deployments. Here are measured outcomes from production environments:

Castle Hills Family Practice (San Antonio, TX – 2 offices)

• 5,222 patient calls per month processed through CallMyDoc
• 50% reduction in phone workload for front-desk staff
• 51.9% of calls came after hours—all documented in the EHR automatically
• 1,938 unique patients served in the first 90 days

Hudson Headwaters Health Network (NY – 89 offices)

• 7,532 monthly calls processed across 89 locations
• 68.1% of business-hour calls handled automatically—without staff intervention
• 41.6% of routine requests resolved within CallMyDoc—no provider action needed
• Freed nursing staff to focus on bedside care instead of phone triage

Millennium Physician Group (FL – 200+ locations, 900+ providers)

• 34,492 monthly calls across 1,354 dashboards
• 4.1 million+ total calls processed through the platform
• 52.1% of business-hours requests resolved within 1.8 hours
• Enterprise-scale deployment demonstrating the kind of multi-site complexity that TouchWorks practices operate in

ThinkMedFirst (Jacksonville, NC)

• 187 dashboards, 21,000 monthly calls processed
• 1.49 million total calls through the platform
• Hybrid primary/urgent care model with complex routing requirements

Across all deployments, CallMyDoc has processed 26 million+ patient calls with zero lost calls and zero breaches in 38 states—a track record that matters for enterprise TouchWorks organizations where reliability and compliance are non-negotiable.

What the Integration Replaces

TouchWorks practices—especially larger enterprise organizations—typically cobble together multiple systems to handle patient calls:

Setup and Implementation

Enterprise TouchWorks practices have legitimate concerns about implementation complexity—especially when integrating a new system across multiple departments and locations. CallMyDoc deployment is designed for that complexity:

• No setup fees—integration configuration, voice prompt customization, testing, and staff training are all included
• TouchWorks integration setup—connecting CallMyDoc to your TouchWorks environment with proper authentication, patient data mapping, and department routing
• Multi-department call routing—mapping your specific departments, providers, specialty teams, and escalation rules
• Multi-site configuration—separate routing logic for each location with unified reporting and analytics
• On-call schedule setup—rotating coverage schedules supporting complex after-hours routing across departments and locations
• 30-day free trial—full platform access to prove the results before committing
• No long-term contracts—cancel anytime without termination fees

Flat-rate pricing means there are no per-call or per-minute charges. Your practice can handle surges in call volume—flu season, appointment reminders, recall campaigns—without worrying about escalating costs.

Security and Compliance

Enterprise TouchWorks organizations handle Protected Health Information on every call, often across dozens of locations and hundreds of providers. Security isn't optional—it's a prerequisite. CallMyDoc meets that standard:

• HIPAA compliant with signed Business Associate Agreements
• SOC 2 certified—independently audited security controls
• End-to-end encryption—PHI secured in transit and at rest
• Access controls and audit trails for every interaction across every location
• Zero breaches across 26 million+ patient calls in 38 states

The platform provides complete audit trails for every patient interaction, including on-call schedules, provider contacts, response timestamps, and the full call transcript. This supports both HIPAA compliance and malpractice defense—ensuring that every communication is documented, not just the ones that happen inside the office.

43-Language Support for Diverse Patient Populations

Large TouchWorks practices and health systems often serve linguistically diverse communities across multiple regions. CallMyDoc provides real-time translation across 43 languages, transcribing patient calls in their native language and translating to English for provider review. Responses are documented bilingually in the EHR, supporting Section 1557 language access compliance without requiring multilingual staff on every shift or at every location.

The Bottom Line for Altera TouchWorks Practices

TouchWorks is an enterprise-grade EHR built for the complexity of large physician groups and health systems. It manages clinical documentation, practice workflows, billing, and interoperability at scale. But it wasn't designed to manage the hundreds of daily patient phone calls that consume staff time, interrupt providers, and create documentation gaps in the clinical record.

CallMyDoc bridges that gap with an integration that transforms patient calls into structured clinical tasks—documented, categorized, and routed directly into TouchWorks without manual re-entry. No answering service delays. No voicemail black holes. No sticky notes that fall off the monitor.

With 26 million+ patient calls processed, zero breaches, and zero lost calls across 38 states—including enterprise deployments with 200+ locations and 900+ providers—the platform has been validated at the scale that TouchWorks practices actually operate in.

Founded in 2013 by Dr. Shahinaz Soliman (board-certified family physician, 30+ years clinical experience) and Carl Silva (Chief Scientist, 20+ years systems architecture), CallMyDoc was built from real clinical experience with the communication gaps that EHR systems—even enterprise ones like TouchWorks—were never designed to solve.

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See the TouchWorks Integration in Action

Schedule a 30-minute demo to see how CallMyDoc integrates with your Altera TouchWorks environment. We'll show you real-time patient identification, clinical task creation, multi-department routing, after-hours handling, and provider response workflows—all documented directly in TouchWorks. No setup fees, no long-term contracts, 30-day free trial.