Connecting Through AI-Powered Call Intelligence
By Lyall Vanatta, Vice President of Marketing, Marchex
LinkedIn: Lyall Vanatta
LinkedIn: Marchex
Healthcare organizations invest billions in marketing to attract new patients. Yet many still struggle to translate these efforts into revenue growth. According to a 2023 study by Klein & Partners and the Society for Healthcare Strategy & Market Development, U.S. health systems spend up to $5 billion annually on marketing–including digital ads, direct mail, and community outreach.
Despite this significant investment, a major gap remains: many healthcare marketing leaders lack visibility into what happens after a potential patient picks up the phone.
This blind spot limits the ability to measure return on investment (ROI) and optimize marketing strategies. However, AI-powered conversation intelligence offers a solution. By transforming data from inbound phone calls into actionable insights that drive revenue, healthcare organizations can uncover opportunities to drive revenue, improve patient experience, and better align cross-functional teams.
The Disconnect Between Marketing and Revenue
In healthcare marketing, success depends on conversion—not just awareness or engagement. Traditional measurement metrics, such as impressions, click-through rates, and call volumes, only tell part of the story. Outcomes are what truly matter.
For example, a campaign might drive a high volume of calls, but if those calls result in dropped connections, confused callers, or unbooked appointments, the investment fails to deliver value.
The financial impact can be significant. For health systems, the average value is $1,395 per new patient, while it’s $538 for smaller medical groups. If hundreds of calls fail to convert each month, the resulting revenue loss can quickly escalate quickly. Traditional call tracking platforms exacerbate this issue. While they can attribute a call to a specific campaign, they lack context about the conversation itself to fully maximize the campaign’s effectiveness.
Why Traditional Call Tracking Falls Short
Standard call tracking tools can show whether a call occurred and provide a summary of what was said. But they don’t reveal whether the patient’s needs were met or why an appointment wasn’t scheduled. Without this level of detail, marketers can’t pinpoint which messages resonate, which audiences convert, or what operational issues are costing them revenue.
This lack of context leads to missed opportunities. Marketers end up guessing about ROI instead of taking data-driven action to improve it.
The Role of Conversation Intelligence
AI-powered conversation intelligence addresses these gaps by analyzing the full content of inbound phone calls to transcribe and evaluate conversations to uncover critical patterns, including:
- Appointment intent: Did the caller express a desire to book a visit?
- Urgency: Are they seeking same-day care or a future appointment?
- Barriers to conversion: Are insurance issues, provider availability, or long wait times preventing bookings?
- Sentiment and tone: How did the patient feel during the interaction?
- Staff performance: Are human and AI agents effective and produce high CSAT scores?
Turning Conversations into Conversions
The path from marketing to measurable revenue doesn’t have to be complicated. With AI-powered conversation intelligence, healthcare organizations can move beyond vanity metrics and finally understand how their campaigns impact the bottom line.
When you can see not just that calls are happening, but what happens during them; you can fix what’s broken, double down on what’s working, and deliver a seamless experience for every potential patient.
The Power of Conversation Intelligence in Healthcare Marketing
Unlike traditional call tracking, which only captures on surface-level metadata like call duration or dialed numbers, conversation intelligence provides a deeper view of the patient journey. This technology connects marketing efforts directly to booked appointments, patient satisfaction, and revenue generation.
By understanding the nuances of each call, marketers can optimize campaigns, operations teams can remove bottlenecks, and revenue teams proactively address payer-related challenges throughout the patient journey.
The Phone Channel’s Critical Role
Despite the rise of digital tools, phone calls remain the dominant channel for scheduling medical appointments. A 2023 study in Health Affairs Scholar found that 72% of U.S. adults scheduled at least one medical appointment by phone in the previous 12 months, with more than half citing it as their primary method of engagement with the health system. This preference is especially strong among older adults and patients managing chronic conditions, who often value the reassurance of speaking directly to a live representative for complex or high-consideration care decisions.
Yet, most health systems still lack visibility into these interactions. Did the caller reach the correct department? Were they offered an online booking option? Did they abandon the call because of long wait times or multiple transfers? Traditional call tracking solutions can’t answer these questions, leaving health systems and their practices without insight into why calls fail. This lack of insight has a direct financial impact.
These insights enable organizations to address operational issues and ensure that more calls result in booked appointments and satisfied patients.
Optimizing Marketing Spend in a Constrained Environment
With healthcare marketing budgets under increasing pressure, focused strategies are more important than ever. According to Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey, healthcare marketing budgets have declined significantly—dropping from 9.6% of total revenue in 2023 to just 7.2% in 2024. This illustrates that many healthcare marketers are indeed managing with flat or shrinking budgets.
Conversation intelligence helps teams focus their resources where they matter most. By identifying campaigns that drive calls that lead to booked appointments, marketers can shift budgets to their highest-performing channels. Additionally, insights into barriers like provider shortages or insurance denials allow operations teams to address systemic issues that block revenue.
This data-driven approach turns every marketing dollar into a smarter investment.
Breaking Down Silos for a Unified Patient Journey
Conversation intelligence bridges the gap between marketing, operations, and revenue cycle teams. For many health organizations, these functions often work in isolation, creating a fragmented view of the patient journey. By making conversation data shareable and actionable across departments, teams can align around a single source of truth
- Marketing teams can pinpoint which campaigns drive high-intent calls and refine messaging to target the right audiences.
- Operational leaders can monitor hold times, transfer rates, and staff responsiveness to improve efficiency and the patient experience.
- Revenue teams can spot payer-related objections or denials early, enabling proactive resolution and solutions to secure payments.
This unified view eliminates guess work and fosters collaborative decision-making. When insights are shared across departments, organizations can create a seamless patient experience, from initial outreach to booked appointment and beyond.
A Scalable Solution for Lean Teams
For health systems with small teams or tight budgets, conversation intelligence delivers value without requiring major system overalls or additional staff. Real-time analytics create an immediate feedback loops between marketing and operations.
For example, if a campaign generates calls but few scheduled appointments due to long hold times, operations leaders can adjust staffing while marketers refine targeting. This agility ensures every marketing dollar works harder.
Conclusion
Healthcare organizations are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the ROI of every marketing initiative while delivering patient-centered care. Phone calls remain a critical touchpoint, and the quality of these interactions directly influences both revenue and patient satisfaction.
AI-powered conversation intelligence closes the loop between marketing efforts and business outcomes, offering clear visibility into what happens during calls, what patients need, and where processes break down.
By moving beyond traditional metrics to a deeper understanding of patient intent, barriers, and outcomes, health systems can optimize marketing spend, streamline operations, and deliver a better patient experience.
In an era of constrained budgets and rising expectations, conversation intelligence is not just a solution but a strategic advantage for building a more connected, effective, and patient-focused health system.