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.
- Click Connect.
- Enter your numeric Practice ID and click Test connection. FrontDesk verifies access and loads your departments.
- Pick a default department for the AI to book into.
- Click Connect to finish.
Approval (why it may say "Awaiting approval")
athenahealth requires each practice to authorize an app before it can access data. So after you connect, you may see an Awaiting approval status while FrontDesk submits the authorization to athenahealth on your behalf.
- This typically takes 2–3 business days.
- You'll get an email when the connection goes active.
- Once approved, syncing and booking start automatically — you don't need to reconnect.
The card shows a clear status the whole way through: Practice ID saved → Awaiting approval → Connected & syncing.
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.
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 handle the athenahealth authorization paperwork and can check your status.