Olympia Orthopaedic Associates (OlyOrtho), a full-service musculoskeletal practice operating in Southwest Washington, has adopted Innovaccer’s AI-driven Comet solution to overhaul its referral and scheduling workflows.

Background & Need

OlyOrtho runs seven clinic locations and has over 50 providers. The front-office staff were facing heavy administrative burdens processing referrals in many formats, long referral documents with only small relevant portions, high turnover in registration and referral coordinator roles, and inefficiencies in turning referrals into scheduled appointments.

Solution & Deployment

They chose Innovaccer’s Referral Copilot and Scheduling AI Agent (components of the Comet platform) to standardize referral intake, extract essential clinical information, verify insurance eligibility, and reduce manual data entry.

Automation also now handles appointment booking, rescheduling, patient follow-ups, and patient communication via AI agents.

Outcomes & Benefits

Staff report up to ~4× increase in efficiency for referral coordinators: what previously took 6-8 minutes per referral now takes 1-2 minutes.

Improved referral-to-appointment conversion rates. Less delay between referral receipt and scheduling.

Reduced administrative burden and more predictable workflows in front-office operations. Some tasks that caused bottlenecks are now automated.

Strategic & Operational Considerations

Dr. Gregory Byrd, Managing Partner at OlyOrtho, emphasized that they sought a vendor with proven track record, data security, and good integration with existing EMRs (to avoid piecemeal solutions).

Innovaccer’s tools are “always-on” AI agents, meaning they can handle tasks continuously (e.g. during high volume times) without added headcount. This helps manage fluctuations and staff shortages.