The athenahealth integration lets your AI receptionist work directly in athenaOne, looking up patients and booking, rescheduling, and cancelling appointments on your real athena schedule.
This is a read/write integration. Unlike the read-only Practice Fusion sync, athenahealth lets the AI create and change appointments and patients in your athenaOne account.
Connect athenahealth
- Open Settings → Integrations and find the athenahealth card under Practice Management & EHR.
- Click Connect.
- Enter your athenahealth Practice ID (in athenaOne: Settings → Practice Info) and click Connect.
- If your practice has more than one department, pick a Default department for the AI to book into and click Finish setup. With a single department this step is skipped.
Approval (why it may say "FrontDesk reviewing" or "Awaiting approval")
The card walks you through each stage:
- Practice ID saved.
- FrontDesk confirms it's yours. To keep patient records safe, a FrontDesk team member checks that the Practice ID belongs to your practice before connecting. This usually takes one business day, and you get an email when it is done. The status reads FrontDesk reviewing. If the ID can't be confirmed, the card says This Practice ID wasn't approved; check the number or contact support.
- Sign the Authorization & Consent form, if athenahealth has not yet authorized FrontDesk for your practice. The status reads Awaiting approval. We email you athenahealth's form; use Open & sign form on the card, then I've signed it.
- athenahealth approval, usually about 1–5 days after you sign. You get an email the moment access is granted.
- Start taking live calls. The connection switches on and appointments and patients start syncing by themselves; you don't need to reconnect.
Once live, the card shows Connected.
What the AI can do once active
- Look up patients by phone/name (and create a new patient when needed, collecting date of birth to match safely).
- Check real availability from athena's open slots for the chosen department and appointment type.
- Book, reschedule, and cancel appointments, written straight into athenaOne, with a matching copy kept in FrontDesk.
- Book for several people on one call (a parent and two children, say) one person at a time, so each visit is written to athenaOne.
Sync appointments into FrontDesk
Turn on Sync appointments to FrontDesk (on the athenahealth card) to pull appointments booked directly in athenaOne (by your front desk or the patient portal) into your FrontDesk calendar. That way reminders, reporting, and the AI all see your full schedule, not just AI-booked visits. athenahealth stays the source of truth; this pull never changes anything in athena.
- Send reminders for synced appointments: a second toggle. Leave it on to send FrontDesk reminders for athena-booked visits too, or turn it off to sync for calendar visibility only. (Reminders still require your Confirmations settings and SMS to be on.)
Here's how the two toggles work together:
| Sync appointments | Send reminders | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Off | Either | FrontDesk only sees AI-booked appointments |
| On | Off | All athena appointments show in FrontDesk; no reminders for the athena-booked ones |
| On | On | All athena appointments show and get FrontDesk reminders |
The first toggle controls visibility (do athena-booked appointments appear in FrontDesk); the second controls outreach (should FrontDesk remind patients about them).
What syncs
The athenahealth card lists exactly what moves between the systems:
- Appointments: two-way. Pulled from athena into FrontDesk. Bookings, moves, and cancellations made by the AI, by staff on the FrontDesk calendar, or by clients in the client portal are written back to athena.
- Patients: two-way. Synced into FrontDesk, and new patients the AI takes are created in athena.
- Insurance details: read-only. A linked patient's insurance is shown on their FrontDesk record, pulled from athenaOne on demand. FrontDesk never edits insurance in athena.
Changes from the client portal
athenahealth stays the source of truth when a client acts in the client portal: the change is made in athenaOne first, and only then in FrontDesk. A change made only in FrontDesk would come back on the next sync, so that never happens.
- Cancel: cancelled in athena with the note "Cancelled via the client portal" plus the client's reason. Staff get the usual cancellation notification and the slot is offered to the waitlist.
- Reschedule: the open times shown are athena's, for the same provider. athena moves the same appointment to the new slot, so in FrontDesk the visit keeps its card and simply shows the new time, already confirmed. Staff are told "moved by the client in the portal · updated in athenahealth".
- Book: with the booking page in instant mode the appointment is created in athena on the client's own chart, with no name-and-phone matching and never a duplicate chart. In request mode staff confirm it, and that confirmation books it into athena. See Handle booking requests.
- If athena refuses a cancel or a move, nothing changes on either side and the client sees "We couldn't cancel this visit in the practice's scheduling system. Please call the practice." A booking athena will not take becomes a request for staff.
- Read-only cases: a client whose record is not linked to an athena chart, or a practice whose connection is paused or in error, sees their athena visits without Cancel or Reschedule and a note to call the practice.
- Fees: the cancellation policy never charges on an athenahealth practice; athena keeps its own billing.
Each of these shows in Recent activity on the card, alongside the AI's and the calendar's write-backs.
Keep an eye on syncing
The athenahealth card shows the health of the connection at a glance:
- Recent activity lists the latest syncs and write-backs (for example, "12 appointments pulled from athenahealth" or "Appointment pushed to athenahealth"). Failed attempts show here too.
- Last synced tells you when the last pull ran, with a Sync now link to pull immediately.
- If a sync falls behind, a Sync is behind banner appears at the top of the card so new athena bookings don't quietly go missing. Just click Sync now.
Manage or disconnect
From the athenahealth card you can Test connection, change the default department, edit the Practice ID, or Disconnect. Disconnecting stops future syncing; appointments already written to athena stay in athena.
Not sure of your Practice ID or stuck on approval? Contact FrontDesk support; we can check where your authorization stands.