Ventura Orthopedics: 300+ Appointments in Month One
Challenge
Ventura Orthopedics is one of the oldest and most respected orthopedic group practices in California. Nearly 40 board-certified, fellowship-trained physicians, surgeons and therapists care for patients across five locations in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, with service lines in sports medicine, joint replacement, spine, hand and wrist, and foot and ankle, and the group is a regional leader in total hip replacement and minimally invasive spine surgery. A practice of that size has tens of thousands of patients looking for its care every month. Most patients, though, never reach a practice's schedule: they research care at night, 82% of them try to book outside office hours, and the ones who do not find a way in simply move on. For a group of Ventura's size and reputation, demand was never the question. The question was how many more of those patients could become completed appointments, around the clock and across every location, without adding anything to the team's day.
Approach
Clinekt's AI agents are built for specialty practices. They understand what an orthopedic patient is describing, how urgent it is, and which location and service line should see them. Clinekt went live across all five Ventura Orthopedics locations in under one week, with no IT project and no staff training. From that point on, a patient could describe what hurts in plain language at any hour, get a clear next step, and get an appointment at the right office for their condition. New patients start care the moment they are looking for it, and existing patients who have been away come back to the practice the same way. For the practice, that means more appointments on the schedule, more new patients, and existing patients back in for care, at every location, with nothing added to the team's workload. Every patient is tracked from first conversation to completed visit, so leadership can see exactly what Clinekt produced.
Solution
Within the first week, Clinekt's agents were handling hundreds of patient conversations, including nights and weekends. By the end of the first month, patients who started with Clinekt had completed more than 300 appointments. More than 200 of them were new to the practice, and the rest were existing patients who came back for care. Patients were seen at all five locations, and the practice added no staff to make it happen. Every one of those patients was matched against the practice's own eClinicalWorks records, and only completed visits are counted, so the figures are what the practice's system shows rather than a projection. The takeaway for any multi-location orthopedic group: patients look for care at every hour, and answering them the moment they are ready can mean hundreds of completed appointments in the first month, with no new marketing spend and nothing added to the front desk.
Results
What’s next
Ventura Orthopedics is now connected to eClinicalWorks, so every new patient is matched to the chart automatically and each visit is tracked from first conversation to completed care. Next, Clinekt will bring overdue patients back to the practice on the same automated loop, with the same EHR-verified reporting. As an OrthoForum member practice, Ventura is also helping prove out the model for large multi-location orthopedic groups nationwide.