Most — 70–89%59%
Almost all — 90% or more23%
About half — 50–69%16%
Less than half2%
Parlance Market Research Report · 2026
What 100 leaders of independent multi-site clinic groups told us about the revenue that walks out through the phone line.
Research report · Updated October 15, 2026
| Sample | Threshold |
|---|---|
| 100 leaders of independent clinic groups | 10+ locations, $30M–$500M revenue, not hospital or IDN affiliated |
Patient access in these practices still runs through the telephone. Four in ten leaders estimate their group loses at least a quarter of a million dollars a year to calls that go unanswered, get abandoned on hold, or reach a person and end without the patient getting what they called for. That last category makes call-answer rates an incomplete measure of whether patients actually get helped.
These are decision-makers rather than observers. Just under half make the final call on patient-access technology and another third are among the key decision-makers, which means the estimates throughout this report come from the people who would have to fund the fix. Every group operates at least ten locations, roughly half operate twenty or more, and all of them sit between $30M and $500M in annual revenue, independent of any hospital or health system.
Screener · n=100
The figures that follow are leaders’ estimates rather than system exports. They show how the people responsible for patient access assess the scale and cost of the problem. Revenue-loss estimates should be read as informed judgments, not audited financial results.
Digital scheduling has not displaced the call in this segment of healthcare. For 82% of these groups, most or almost all patient access still begins when someone picks up a telephone, which makes every weakness on that line a weakness at the front door of the business.
Four in five say the phone carries most or all of patient access.
Base: all respondents, n=100. Single-select; percentages total 100.
49% of leaders put the busy-day failure rate at 15% or higher.
Base: all respondents, n=100. Single-select; percentages total 100.
When asked what share of busy-day calls go unanswered, lack a timely voicemail callback or are abandoned on hold, 49% of leaders estimated at least 15%. Within the full sample, 25% put that share at a quarter or more of incoming calls. These are different levels of pressure: understanding how many calls fail on a practice’s own busiest days is a useful starting point for deciding where support is needed.
We asked healthcare leaders:
Tell me about a time the phones got away from your team — what happened, and what did it cost you?
“One time we had two front desk staff call out sick on a Monday morning, and the phones quickly became backed up. Patients experienced long hold times, some calls were missed, and appointment scheduling was delayed. It led to frustrated patients, extra work returning calls later in the day, and a few complaints about customer service.”
— Operations Executive, 10-19 clinics, Primary care, Washington
The missed calls became callbacks later in the day, adding to the team’s workload after the initial rush had already delayed appointment scheduling.
The previous finding counts calls that never connected or did not receive a timely callback. A second problem occurs when a patient reaches someone but still cannot accomplish what they called to do. Nearly two thirds of leaders, 64%, estimate this happens on at least 5% of answered calls.
64% estimate at least 5% of answered calls end unresolved; 34% put the rate at 15% or more.
Base: all respondents, n=100. Single-select; percentages total 100.
Three quarters believe blocked or unhelped callers take their care elsewhere at least occasionally.
Base: all respondents, n=100. Single-select; percentages total 100.
Answering a call and resolving a patient’s request are different measures of success. An abandonment rate alone cannot show whether a caller secured an appointment or got the help they needed. For practice leaders, the next question is what happens after someone picks up.
We asked healthcare leaders:
Tell me about a time the phones got away from your team — what happened, and what did it cost you?
“We weren’t able to schedule or get anyone in, so we had lots of open time slots.”
— Physician Owner, 50+ clinics, Primary care, Ohio
The caller on the line may be managing appointments for someone else as well. In this study, 88% of leaders say their typical patient also schedules for at least one other person, and 48% say two or more. That makes it useful to understand whose care a caller is trying to arrange, alongside whether the call is answered.
48% say a typical patient schedules for two or more other people.
Base: all respondents, n=100. Single-select; percentages total 100.
72% have either seen patients leave over access frustration or suspect that they have.
Base: all respondents, n=100. Single-select; percentages total 100.
On patient departures, 33% of leaders say they have seen people leave for a competitor because of phone or access frustration; another 39% suspect it but cannot confirm it. That gap matters for leaders trying to put a cost on access problems. Confirmed departures and suspected losses tell different stories about what a practice can actually track.
After asking leaders to estimate annual revenue lost to unsuccessful patient calls, we asked:
How did you arrive at that estimate — or, if it’s hard to pin down, what makes it hard to put a number on?
“… Each customer represents a value. What makes it hard is the different issues a customer might be calling for, and for how many people.”
— Director of Patient Access, 10-19 clinics, Physical medicine and rehabilitation, Texas
It would be easy to read the previous findings as an operations problem that stays inside the building. Patients are the ones registering it. When these leaders describe what patients complain about, access outranks the clinical experience by a wide margin, and the staffing cost shows up in the same answers.
57% say complaints skew toward reaching the practice rather than the care delivered.
Base: all respondents, n=100. Single-select; percentages total 100.
The most-cited consequence is a worn-out front desk, ahead of any individual lost call.
Base: all respondents, n=100. Multi-select; percentages sum to more than 100.
Only 11% of leaders say complaints are more often about providers or care than about getting through. Inside the practice, 48% report overwhelmed or burned-out front-desk staff, and 34% say the phone prevents staff from focusing on the patient in front of them. Improving phone access therefore involves more than reducing hold times: it also means looking at which calls reach the front desk and what staff must do with them.
We asked healthcare leaders:
If you could fix one thing about how patients reach your practice by phone, what would it be?
“I would have a better protocol for how people pick which department to call. My front staff gets a lot of calls that are strictly for the nurses.”
— Operations Executive, 20-49 clinics, Primary care, Idaho
The routing problem gives the front desk responsibility for calls that need clinical attention, adding to its workload before the patient reaches someone who can help.
Just over half of leaders, 51%, say the phone channel has been under-invested in or overlooked relative to its size. At the same time, 20% report using AI or voice automation and 42% are evaluating or piloting automation. Those answers describe different stages of adoption, with many groups still assessing their options.
Half say the channel has been under-funded relative to the volume it carries.
Base: all respondents, n=100. Single-select; percentages total 100.
20% use AI / voice automation; 42% are evaluating or piloting automation.
Base: all respondents, n=100. Single-select; percentages total 100.
The distinction between using automation and evaluating it matters. One in five groups already uses AI or voice automation; a larger share is still evaluating or piloting automation. The practical question is which patient requests it should handle and where staff attention is most valuable. The response below describes one leader’s preferred division of work, rather than a result already achieved.
We asked healthcare leaders:
If you could fix one thing about how patients reach your practice by phone, what would it be?
“I would like AI to handle less burdensome issues so staff can focus on more complex phone calls.”
— Director of Patient Access, 10-19 clinics, Primary care, Virginia
Four in ten leaders estimate that unsuccessful patient calls cost their group at least a quarter of a million dollars a year. The responses show several places where access can break down: calls that never connect, answered calls that do not resolve a request, and staff pulled between the phone and the patient in front of them. For a practice deciding where to act, each is a specific part of the patient experience to examine.
Parlance builds intelligent voice assistants that answer, route, and resolve routine patient calls, so front-desk teams stop absorbing volume they cannot handle and patients stop hanging up unhelped. The approach is a joint build rather than a vendor handoff, which matters in a segment where 41% of leaders have already had a technology vendor underdeliver or leave them on their own after launch.
Gather fielded this study in July 2026 as a guided interview with 100 leaders of independent multi-site clinic groups across the United States. Respondents qualified on five screening criteria covering role, decision authority, organizational independence, location count, and annual revenue. Findings are reported at the total-sample level.
Percentages are calculated from unique respondents rather than total mentions, and rounded using the largest-remainder method so that single-select questions total exactly 100%. Multi-select questions total more than 100% because respondents could choose more than one option, and these are labeled wherever they appear. Figures describing annual revenue loss are respondents’ own estimates rather than audited financial data, and should be read as what these leaders believe the problem costs them.
Participant quotations include complete responses and selected excerpts. Ellipses indicate omitted text. Punctuation has been lightly edited for readability; wording is unchanged.
