Verify identity before sharing records adds a privacy check to your AI receptionist. Before it discusses a returning patient's own appointments, balance, treatment or records, it confirms it's actually speaking with that person. It's off by default and set per location.
Why you'd use it
Caller ID tells you which phone a call came from, not who is holding it. A spouse, a child or a stranger could be on the line. This setting makes the same identity check happen on every call, without your front desk having to think about it.
Turn it on
- Open Receptionist → AI Voice and stay on the Voice tab.
- Under What it can do, switch on Verify identity before sharing records ("Require the caller's name and date of birth before the AI discusses any treatment, balance, or appointment details.").
- Save. The change applies to the next call.
If athenahealth is connected, the row shows a lock and Required instead of a switch. With a connected EHR the AI can reach live chart details, so verification is always on.
What the caller experiences
- General questions (hours, directions, services, booking as a new patient, leaving a message) work right away. The AI asks whether the caller has been seen before, and new patients skip the check.
- When a returning patient asks about their own appointment, balance, treatment or records, the AI asks for their full name and date of birth. FrontDesk checks them on the server and tells the AI only whether they matched. The date of birth on file is never read out.
- If the details don't match, the AI may ask the caller to spell their name, or for the ZIP code or email on their file. When the AI only needs the year of birth, asking for it doesn't count as a try.
- After the fourth miss, the AI stops and offers a choice: "That still isn't matching what I have on file. I can take a message and have the team call you back, or we can try one more time."
- After the fifth miss, verification is locked for the rest of the call: "I'm not able to verify that over the phone. I can take a message or have a team member follow up."
- If the caller can't be verified, or there's no date of birth on file, the AI shares nothing personal and offers to take a message or have a team member follow up.
- Once verified, the caller stays verified for the rest of the call.
Returning a staff member's call or leaving a message for someone is message-taking, so the AI doesn't ask for verification. Each attempt, and whether it passed, is recorded on the call in Call Logs. A message the AI takes from a caller it tried and failed to verify shows a Couldn't verify chip in Tasks: confirm who they are before sharing anything when you call back.
When identity checks are off
With Verify identity before sharing records off, the AI doesn't ask anyone to prove who they are, so FrontDesk uses the caller's own number instead:
- Details from a client's record (their visits, balance, phone, email or last visit) are only shared with a caller ringing from the number on that record.
- Confirming, rescheduling or cancelling a visit, and texting a payment link, also only work for the number they're calling from.
- Asked about someone else, by name or by another number, the AI shares nothing, not even whether that person is a client. It says it can't share another person's details over the phone and offers to take a message or have the office call back.
- A caller who says it's their own account but is on a different phone gets the same offer, or a call back on the number on file.
- Booking a new appointment, the waitlist, messages and general questions work for every caller.
Like verification, this is enforced on the server. See How the AI handles callers.
With athenahealth connected
Verification is always on. Identity is confirmed against athenahealth's records and needs one more matching detail besides name and date of birth: a phone number on the chart (the number they're calling from counts), the email or the ZIP code. Name and date of birth alone are not enough.
Good to know
- Protection is enforced on the server. The tools that look up appointments, balances and records refuse to answer until the caller is verified, so a slip in the conversation can't reveal them. The tools that change an appointment's details or text a payment link wait for verification too.
- Conversation memory has its own Only after identity is verified setting, which controls whether past calls, texts and chats are used before the caller verifies.
- Outbound calls confirm they're speaking with the right person before discussing specifics. By default the AI asks something like "Am I speaking with…?". With this setting on, it also asks for name and date of birth.