Physician After Hours Answering Service.
The pager is yours. The protocol is yours. The rig owns the rest.
A physician after hours answering service built as an AI rig. HIPAA-aware, protocol-driven, with on-call paging on the channel you actually check. Triages patient calls against your decision tree, captures structured intake, books the routine ask, and pages the on-call physician when the protocol says page. Two-week build, $2,000 fixed.
§ 01Why physician practices outgrow operator-driven services.
A traditional physician after hours answering service runs $400–$900/month with per-minute charges. The operator reads your triage script, captures seven fields, and pages the on-call. That's the whole job. An AI rig does it without the on-hold delay, without the per-minute meter, and with a verbatim transcript of every call. Solo physicians and small groups especially feel the gap — the per-minute spike on a busy night is the same whether you're a 30-physician group or a one-doctor practice.
Protocol-driven triage
Your symptom triage tree, encoded once and walked the same way every call. No operator interpretation, no "I think she meant urgent."
On-call paging
Structured page on the channel you actually check — SMS via BAA gateway, secure messenger, or voice. Acknowledged-or-escalated logic built in.
Verbatim transcript
Every call captured word-for-word. No "operator's summary" filter between what the patient said and what you see on the page.
§ 02What the physician rig actually does.
Four jobs, every after-hours patient call. Same structured intake your front desk does in the daytime, minus the front desk and minus the monthly bill.
Triage to your protocol
Patient describes a symptom. The rig walks the decision tree your practice already uses, tags severity, and decides: page on-call, route to morning, or refer to ER. The decision is logged with the inputs.
Structured patient intake
Patient name, DOB, callback, current meds, symptom onset, relevant history. Captured to your encrypted intake queue with the field schema your office uses.
Page the on-call physician
When the triage protocol triggers, the on-call gets a structured page — patient identifier, callback, triage level, summary. Acknowledged-or-escalated within your defined window.
Handle the routine ask
Appointment requests, refill questions, lab result inquiries, billing routing. Queued for the morning with intake already done so the front desk closes them in minutes.
§ 03$2,000 once. Then the rig is yours.
Physician answering services — MedConnectUSA, MAP, Specialty Answering Service, PCN Health, dozens of regional shops — all run on monthly recurring. Plans that cover nights, weekends, and on-call paging start around $400/month and reach $900/month for busy practices, with per-minute on top. That's $4,800–$10,800 a year for software answering a phone you don't own. The Pulp rig is $2,000 once. The triage tree, the BAA chain, the paging channel — all yours on day 15.
$2,000 fixed. One time.
Two weeks. Fixed scope. Triage tree wired to your protocol, HIPAA-aware intake, on-call paging on the channel you check, audit trail exportable from day one. The number on the proposal is the number on the invoice.
NO RETAINER REQUIRED
§ 04Honest objections, physician edition.
Will the AI practice medicine?
No. The rig walks the triage script you already use — the same decision tree your nurse follows on the phone at 2pm. It does not diagnose, prescribe, or interpret. It triages, intakes, and pages. Anything outside the protocol routes to a human.
What about EHR integration?
The rig drops intake into the queue your front desk already opens in the morning — encrypted inbox, HIPAA-compliant form provider, or EHR-adjacent intake tool. We don't write directly to Epic or Athena. Your front desk reviews and posts.
Is it HIPAA compliant?
Yes — the BAA chain spans every vendor in the call path, PHI lives in your encrypted store, audit trail on every call. See the HIPAA compliant answering service page for the full chain.
How does this compare to MedConnectUSA or MAP?
Those are monthly subscriptions: $400–$900/month plus per-minute. Cancel and coverage stops. Pulp builds the rig once for $2,000 fixed and hands you the source. The triage tree, BAA chain, and audit log are yours.
§ 05Related medical builds.
- Medical after hours answering service — the practice-wide sibling.
- Automated medical answering services — no operator in the loop.
- HIPAA compliant answering service — full BAA chain.
- All vertical builds →