Medical answering service with HIPAA-compliant message handling: what doctors, dentists and clinics ask us

Special Interest Answering Service (SIAS) answers for medical and dental offices 24 hours a day with live, US-based, bilingual operators, reaches the provider on call for urgent patient calls, and delivers routine messages by secure app, text, email or fax. The service costs the same as every other SIAS account: from $159 every 4 weeks for 100 operator minutes, no setup fee, no contract. Below are the questions practice managers ask before they move their after-hours line to us.

What does a medical answering service actually do?

It answers your office line when your staff cannot: after hours, at lunch, on holidays, or during a busy stretch when every line is lit. A live operator answers in your practice's name, follows your script, and sorts each call: a patient who needs the provider on call now, a patient who can wait for a callback in the morning, a pharmacy or hospital calling with a question, a new patient asking about appointments. Each kind of call gets the handling you set up with us.

Is SIAS HIPAA compliant?

SIAS handles medical messages under HIPAA-compliant procedures: operators collect only what your script asks for, and messages containing patient information can be delivered through our Secure Delivery app (browser, Android and iPhone) instead of plain text or email. If your compliance officer needs a Business Associate Agreement or has questions about how messages are stored and delivered, raise it when you sign up so it is settled before the first call.

How do you reach the doctor on call?

You give us the on-call schedule and the order to try people in. When a patient's call meets your definition of urgent, the operator pages or texts the provider on call, or patches the patient straight through. Talk time after a patch is not billed. If the first person does not answer, the operator continues down your list and follows your fallback instructions. You can update the rotation at any time by calling or writing in, and there is no fee for changes.

How much does a medical answering service cost?

SIAS prices as of October 26, 2026: Starter, $159 every 4 weeks for 100 operator minutes ($0.99 per extra minute); Growth, $219 for 200 minutes ($0.89); Business, $379 for 400 minutes ($0.85); volume tiers from $515 for 560 minutes to $960 for 1,200 minutes. We bill every 4 weeks (28 days), 13 times a year, so $159 every 4 weeks is about $172 per calendar month. No setup fee, no contract, and a 14-day money-back guarantee for new accounts. Medical and dental accounts use the same price table as every other SIAS account. Six months of real billing data, including how often customers go over their minutes, is on Pricing and Plans Explained.

How many patient calls does 100 minutes cover?

About 65 to 75 answered calls at our 2026 average of 82 to 90 seconds of operator time per handled call (measured across about 248,000 call records from July 1 to October 18, 2026). You are billed for operator talk time, patch setup, callbacks to your on-call provider, message sending and paging; not for ring time, time in your greeting, or talk time after a patch. Seconds are totaled for the cycle and rounded down.

Can the operators schedule appointments?

Yes. Appointment scheduling is included in every plan and billed as ordinary operator minutes. You tell us which appointment types and time windows the operators may book and what information to collect from the patient.

Do you have Spanish-speaking operators for patients?

Yes. Bilingual English and Spanish operators are on every plan, 24 hours a day, at no extra charge.

How do we receive messages in the morning?

The way you choose: Secure Delivery app, text, email or fax, with no per-message fee. Every message is also visible in your online account portal. Urgent messages follow the on-call path you set, including a live call to the provider.

How do we switch our after-hours line?

Your account is live within 24 hours of sign-up. You forward your office line to the number we give you, either all the time or only when busy or unanswered; carrier instructions are on our How to forward page. Nothing changes for your patients, who keep dialing the number they know. You can cancel at any time by calling or writing in, with no cancellation fee.

Further reading

HIPAA, the BAA and bilingual intake for answering services. After-hours emergency dispatch: how a live answering service handles it.