French healthtech company Doctolib today announced its acquisition of  Berlin company Aaron.ai, maker of AI-based telephone assistance solutions for medical practices.

In Germany, the majority of doctor’s appointments are made by telephone. Medical assistants (MFAs) receive up to 1,000 telephone calls per doctor per month.

On average, a doctor’s office in Germany spends 45 hours each month handling phone calls – with an increase of up to 20 percent during flu season. The high number of incoming calls is not only a stress factor for the medical staff in the practice, it also leads to long waiting times for patients: In general doctor’s practices in Germany cannot be reached by telephone for three out of four patients.

Doctolib is integrating  Aaron.ai’s AI solution into its practice software, thus solving a key challenge for medical practices: telephone calls, which, on average, take up to 45 hours per month.

Founded in 2015, Aaron.ai has developed an AI telephone assistant that helps practice teams simplify and improve communication with patients via telephone. At the same time, patients benefit from more flexibility and around-the-clock telephone access to the practice, even outside of office hours.

After integrating Aaron.ai, patients can not only book doctor’s appointments online or via app around the clock via Doctolib, they can also make telephone requests to make, reschedule or cancel an appointment — without spending time on hold. 

Aaron.ai’s AI solution is currently used by more than 3,500 healthcare providers in Germany. By integrating the AI-based telephone assistant, Doctolib expands its product offering and provides doctors with an additional communication channel with their patients. This means that those patients who don’t use apps and prefer to use their phones will also benefit in the future.

Over this year and the next Doctolib plans to roll out an advisory assistant, a telephone assistant, a personal assistant and a financial assistant. All applications will support healthcare professionals in their daily work — before, during and after their discussions with patients.

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