EliseAI was thrilled to support Unified Women's Healthcare at The UWH of Texas Conference 2025 in Frisco. As Unified's preferred VoiceAI partner, EliseAI brought Tyler Pittman, Strategic Account Executive, to sit down with Dr. Matthew L. Saidel, Chief Medical Officer of Women's Health Connecticut, for a wide-ranging conversation about patient access, operational transformation, and the future of conversational AI in women's health.
The conversation covered ground that most OB/GYN practices know too well: overwhelmed front desk teams, patients giving up after long hold times, and the operational strain of managing complex scheduling workflows. Dr. Saidel shared how Women's Health Connecticut moved from skepticism to implementing VoiceAI across practices within the network, along with candid reflections on what worked, what surprised them, and where they see the technology heading next.
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The Breaking Point
Before implementing VoiceAI, Women's Health Connecticut faced a patient access crisis with real human consequences. Patient satisfaction scores for physicians ran exceptionally high (97 to 99 NPS), but access was a different story. Patients were walking into offices because they couldn't get through by phone.
"We had some offices with maybe 10 or 12 providers where they were dropping 3,000 calls a week because people were tired of waiting on hold," Dr. Saidel explained. The problem persisted even in offices with sophisticated call center infrastructure. "Even in our offices that have sophisticated call centers, these statistics come from a call center that had 10 people answering the phone and still dropping 3,000 calls a week."
Previous attempts at online scheduling had failed spectacularly, creating more work for staff who spent hours correcting booking errors: wrong appointment types, insurance mix-ups, providers scheduled incorrectly.
The Skeptic
Dr. Saidel came to the conversation with the same frustration most people have with automated phone systems. He's the type who wants to "throw the phone through the wall" after two minutes navigating limited menu options and robotic responses. "You say, 'Live person, let me talk to a person, representative, give me something,' and you finally eventually hang up," he said. "That was my preconceived notion. I said, 'Really, this is not going to work.'"
What changed his perspective? An early case that demonstrated the system's ability to handle deeply sensitive situations with appropriate care. A patient called saying her daughter had just been sexually assaulted. "Elise didn't miss a beat, said, 'I am so terribly sorry for what happened to your daughter. Let me get you a live person.'" That moment demonstrated something critical about the technology: it knows when to help and when to hand off.
Handling the Complexity
Tyler asked about the concerns most practices have when evaluating conversational AI for healthcare: Can it really handle the complexity of women's health workflows? The coordination of multiple appointment types, insurance nuances, provider-specific preferences?
Women's health scheduling requires sophisticated coordination. Unlike basic call automation systems, which handle simple routing, VoiceAI for women's health needs to manage clinical nuance. Dr. Saidel walked through a real example of how the system handles Connecticut's mandate for screening ultrasounds in patients with dense breasts. "Elise can look at the patient's chart, 'Would you like to schedule your mammogram as well?' And can look at their last mammogram report in milliseconds, which it pulls from Athena, and say, 'Oh, this patient had dense breasts on her last exam. I will book her for a screening ultrasound at this visit.'"
The system manages the kind of multi-variable juggling that used to keep patients waiting 10 to 25 minutes on hold: suggesting closer office locations, adjusting for insurance timing requirements, respecting individual provider rules about maximum daily appointments. Office managers who previously spent hours correcting online scheduling errors had a different experience with VoiceAI. "They're saying, 'We mostly check, but we don't find mistakes.'"
The Results
The transformation showed up in both data and patient behavior. Call abandonment rates dropped from 50-60% to 5%. Patients called back asking to speak to Elise by name. One older patient told staff: "I wish I had this when I worked at the hospital." The appointment numbers told their own story. The practice had scheduled 4,800 online appointments through the entire calendar year before VoiceAI. After ramping up in late spring? "We're already over 10,000 appointments booked in six months."
For physicians, the impact on patient access was immediate and measurable. "They're not losing 3,000 calls. 3,000 calls transfers to lost revenue, lost patients." But the change went beyond revenue. The first two minutes of patient encounters used to be complaints about access issues. "That stuff all goes away."
Building What's Next with EliseAI
The conversation turned to what excites Dr. Saidel most about the partnership: EliseAI's ability to turn customer ideas into reality. "We ask the questions, and they tell us, 'Yeah, we can do that,'" Dr. Saidel said. "It's the sky's the limit when you think about this."
This collaborative approach means practices across Unified Women's Healthcare benefit from shared innovation. "The great strength of this diverse organization is that somebody over in one Texas tries this and in Georgia they try that, in Connecticut they try this, and we can all benefit from best practices."