A great front-desk person does fifteen jobs — greeting patients, verifying insurance, coordinating treatment, keeping the day on the rails. Phone coverage during the other fourteen is what breaks. You can hire a second person to catch the phones, or you can cover the phones so the person you already trust can do the job you actually hired them for. An AI receptionist is the second option: it takes the rings the desk physically cannot catch and books them into your practice management system.
It depends on your market, and any specific number should come from public wage data rather than a vendor page. Beyond the wage itself, budget for benefits, recruiting time, and the training ramp — and note what the hire still does not buy: one person cannot take two calls at once or cover the hours the office is closed.
No — and it is not designed to. Orbit covers the calls your desk physically cannot catch: when they are with a patient, at lunch, after close, or already on the other line. Your team keeps the in-person work, the judgment calls, and the relationships. Orbit keeps the phone from becoming their fifteenth job.
A new front-desk hire typically takes weeks to recruit and longer to fully ramp. [PLACEHOLDER — verify the real Orbit onboarding time with Tyler before publish; no setup-time claim ships unverified.] Setup is: connect your practice management system, load your practice details, and forward the calls you want covered.
With one person at the desk, the second call waits on hold or rolls to voicemail. Orbit handles simultaneous calls, so the lunch-hour pileup books appointments instead of bouncing to the next practice.
Orbit answers from the insurance participation list your practice configures — which plans you work with and what the patient should bring. Complex benefits breakdowns still belong to your team: the AI hands those off rather than guessing.