What a medical answering service costs
A medical practice pays from the same rate cards as everyone else. PATLive at $99 for 50 minutes, Posh from $65 plus $2.30 a minute, Ruby from $250, AnswerConnect from $350 for 200 minutes. What changes for a practice is not usually the headline number. It's how many minutes you burn, because medical calls are long, and it's what the vendor will sign regarding protected health information.
Those two things are separate and get confused constantly. A vendor can be cheap and unwilling to sign a business associate agreement. A vendor can be expensive and equally unwilling. Price and PHI handling are different questions and you should ask them in that order: what will you sign, then what do you charge.
Our answer to the first question is the uncomfortable one. GreetKeeper carries no certifications, and we make no HIPAA claim. If your calls carry clinical detail, that is a reason to look at vendors who will put something in writing.
Published rate cards a practice would be quoted from
| Service | Entry | Per minute after | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| PATLive | $99 / 50 min | $2.29 | Not listed |
| Posh | $65 / 0 min | $2.30 | Not listed |
| Ruby | $250 / 50 min | Not published | None stated |
| AnswerConnect | $350 / 200 min | $2.50 | $49.99 |
| GreetKeeper | $49 / 200 calls | $0.45 per call | None |
Read on each vendor's own pricing page, September 2026. None of these prices is medical-specific; the vertical does not have its own rate card.
What makes a practice's bill different
- Call length. A new-patient inquiry with insurance questions runs well past the three-minute average this market prices around, and on a minute meter you pay for every one of them.
- After-hours volume. Practices take a disproportionate share of calls outside opening hours, which is exactly when a staffed service is most expensive to run and priced accordingly.
- Triage rules. Any call that must reach an on-call clinician needs a routing rule and, on a human service, a trained receptionist who follows it.
- Whether the vendor will sign a business associate agreement, which is a contractual question and not a product feature anyone can certify their way out of.
- Seasonal spikes. A bad flu week is a bad phone week, and a minute bundle sized for an average month will not survive it.
Worked example
A two-dentist practice takes 220 calls a month. Appointment calls run about two minutes, new-patient calls about seven, and roughly one in five is a new patient. That's around 300 minutes.
PATLive
the $479 plan covers 300 minutes exactly. $479, with no headroom for a busy week.
Posh Prestigious
$700 for 350 minutes. $700.
AnswerConnect
the $395 Growth plan covers 300 minutes with no setup fee, then $1.85 a minute. $395 if the month behaves.
GreetKeeper
220 answered calls sits just past Starter's 200, so 20 calls at $0.45. $49 + $9 = $58.
Your new-patient calls are the ones you most want to happen and the ones a minute meter charges you most for. On these numbers you'd pay roughly seven times more to have those long conversations priced by time than by call.
Where our own price sits
Our plans are $49 for 200 answered calls, $149 for 750 and $349 for 2,000, with the overage rate printed. A seven-minute new-patient call costs the same as a two-minute reschedule.
For a practice, the honest framing of what we sell is inquiry and scheduling: who called, why, and whether it got booked. Clinical detail belongs in your own system, and we scope ourselves to the front of that process rather than any part of the record.
| Plan | Monthly | Calls included | After that |
|---|---|---|---|
| StarterFor a single location taking calls one line at a time. | $49 | 200 | $0.45 per call |
| ProfessionalBooking, routing and transfers included, not an add-on. | $149 | 750 | $0.35 per call |
| ScaleFor busy phones and longer opening hours. | $349 | 2,000 | $0.25 per call |
Before you act on any of this
Every competitor figure on this page was read on that vendor's own pricing page in September 2026. Prices change. Check before you buy.
Questions people ask
Do medical answering services cost more than general ones?
Not usually on the rate card. The vendors above will quote you from the same published tiers as everyone else. What costs you more is your call length and your after-hours share, both of which push you up the minute bundles faster than a retail business climbs them.
Is GreetKeeper HIPAA compliant?
No. GreetKeeper carries no certifications, and we make no HIPAA claim. If a vendor tells you their product is 'HIPAA compliant' as a feature, ask them what agreements they will sign and which subprocessors touch the audio. Compliance lives in those answers.
What should a practice budget for after-hours cover alone?
Price it from your own out-of-hours call log rather than a rule of thumb. On a per-minute service, 60 after-hours calls at four minutes is 240 minutes, which costs you $395 to $479 on the cards above. On ours it's 60 answered calls, inside your $49 plan.
Can an answering service book patients directly into our calendar?
Some can, and some just take a message for your front desk to action. That matters more to you than the rate, because a service that only takes messages moves your work rather than removing it. Check the integration matrix for whatever you schedule in before you compare prices.
Ask what they'll sign, then ask what they charge
In that order. A price you can afford from a vendor who won't put anything in writing is not a saving.