AI employees for occupational therapy clinics
Auth expirations, denied claims, and lost referrals are leaking revenue at every OT location.
Relay builds custom AI employees for multi-location OT groups. They work on top of the EHR and tools you already run, from Fusion by Ensora to WebPT to Raintree. They handle the high-volume back-office and front-office work at every handoff, then pass each finished action to a staff member to finalize.
It is healthcare-specific, a staff member finalizes every action, and you run all of it from one dashboard on a recurring monthly fee.
Sensory Speech & Occupational Therapy, a multi-location pediatric speech and OT group, runs two AI employees built on top of their existing EHR and Drive. The group saw 100% claim accuracy, staff 33% more productive, and claim denials down 12%.
The leak grows every month you add a location. In a free 30-minute call we show you exactly where it's leaking.
Where your OT clinic is leaking revenue.
Five places the back office and front office leak at every location. Open the ones that sound like your clinic.
Pediatric OT referrals arrive through four channels at once: physician fax, parent phone call, online form, and school district request. Faxes pile up on a shared printer while overnight calls roll to voicemail, and whichever clinic responds first keeps the family.
An AI employee monitors every inbound channel. It captures the reason for referral, routes the lead to the right location by specialty and payer, and chases missing packet items with targeted nudges instead of generic blasts. If the physician referral is missing, it drafts the fax request to the referring doctor. A staff member reviews the triage card and approves every outbound message before it sends. The chart arrives complete in time for the eval.
OT intake is heavier than most outpatient specialties: developmental history, sensory processing questionnaires, prior therapy records, school IEP documents, the physician referral, and insurance cards. A missing physician referral blocks prior authorization before the first billable visit. This front office layer runs across every location simultaneously, not just the one a coordinator happened to check today.
Referred families stop falling through the cracks between intake and their first visit.
Auth expirations are predictable. The denial arrives 30 to 60 days after the session, when retroactive authorization is rarely granted. Most commercial insurers and Medicaid plans require prior authorization for OT before the first visit or right after the initial evaluation. The request needs the eval report, functional outcome scores, therapist credentials, ICD-10 and CPT codes, and a clinical justification letter in payer-specific language. Nothing in the EHR alerts you before authorized units run out or the end date passes.
An AI employee tracks every active authorization: units used versus units approved, expiration date, and the re-auth lead time each payer requires. It runs eligibility for every scheduled patient about 72 hours ahead, and again the morning of the visit for Medicaid, because pediatric Medicaid coverage can change month to month with income recertification. It flags coverage lapses and plan changes, then drafts the re-auth packet by pulling clinical data from the EHR into the payer-specific form with the updated plan of care attached. The billing coordinator reviews and submits in one click.
This layer operates across every location at once. A silent expiration at a second or third site does not turn into a write-off weeks later.
You stop writing off expired-auth revenue that was predictable four weeks out.
CO-50 and CO-97 are two of the highest-volume OT denial reason codes. They are also the ones most likely to age past the timely-filing window if the queue is not worked daily.
OT claims must carry the right CPT codes (97165, 97166, 97167 for evaluations; 97168 for re-evaluation; 97530, 97533, 97110, 97112 for treatment), the treating therapist's NPI, the correct modifier (GP for services under an OT plan of care), the authorization number, diagnosis codes that match the authorization, and the place of service. A mismatch anywhere becomes a rejection or a denial. At multi-location claim volume, hand-reviewing every claim is not realistic, so first-pass denials become a steady revenue drag.
An AI employee runs a pre-submission audit on every claim: CPT and modifier validation, auth-number match, diagnosis consistency, NPI and credentialing check. Only clean claims reach the clearinghouse. It reads the daily ERA, classifies each denial by reason code, and drafts the response. For CO-97 it pulls the auth number and drafts the corrected claim. For CO-50 it drafts the appeal from the chart and the payer's medical-necessity criteria. It auto-posts ERAs, flags underpayments below the contracted rate, and drafts secondary claims once the primary EOB posts. The billing coordinator reviews and submits.
Denials get worked before the window closes, and your billing team handles the exceptions, not the entire queue.
No-show revenue loss is structural for OT clinics. Working-parent schedules, child illness, and school events all compete. A missed OT session is unrecoverable for that slot.
OT scheduling in a multi-location pediatric group is a constraint puzzle. Therapists carry payer-specific credentialing. Authorizations are tied to specific procedure codes and visit counts. When a slot opens with two hours' notice, filling it means calling or texting a waitlist and hoping someone answers fast enough on a lean admin team shared across sites. Booking a therapist who is not credentialed with the family's payer, or a visit beyond the authorized count, produces a denied claim discovered weeks later.
An AI employee watches the schedule against three constraints at once: therapist payer credentialing, remaining authorized units per patient, and the current waitlist. When a cancellation lands, it surfaces the top waitlist matches by payer, therapist, and service line, then drafts the text and call sequence for staff to approve. Before any booking it flags a payer or auth mismatch. Auth-aware reminders go out ahead of each visit. A staff member approves every send.
A single dashboard covers all locations. A cancellation at location three gets filled with the same speed as one at location one. Your waitlist works for you instead of sitting in a spreadsheet.
An expired credential is a billing compliance gap. If a therapist's CAQH attestation lapses, payer enrollment stalls and their first claims get denied.
OT payroll across locations is complicated by variable session counts, productivity targets, COTA-under-OTR supervision rules with billing implications, and credential expirations: state license, CPR, HIPAA training, CAQH attestation. These decide whether a therapist can legally bill. Productivity is typically pulled by hand from the EHR at period close. A missed renewal creates a retroactive billing compliance gap. None of this is connected: the credentialing tracker does not tell the billing team when a newly enrolled therapist is cleared to bill a specific payer.
An AI employee monitors the credentialing matrix per provider, location, and payer: license renewal, DEA, CAQH attestation due dates, and enrollment status. It sends advance reminders at 90, 30, and 7 days, pre-populates renewal packets from the existing CAQH record, and routes them for staff review. It cross-references completed EHR sessions against payroll timesheets to flag discrepancies before payroll runs, and bridges enrollment status to the billing queue so the first claim to a newly credentialed payer goes out correctly. A staff member approves every action.
No provider silently bills under an expired credential, and no newly enrolled therapist waits an extra billing cycle to get clean claims out.
Your denial queue is telling you which location is bleeding.
In 30 minutes we'll show you exactly where your OT group is leaking revenue. Built by a former compliance officer at a multi-location pediatric therapy group.
See where you're leakingA different approach: layer-on, not rip-and-replace.
Multi-location OT clinic directors evaluating occupational therapy practice automation typically weigh four options. A new EHR or point tool is a migration event, exactly when you have the least slack. An AI employee layer leaves your system of record in place and adds capacity on top of it.
| Approach | What it means in practice | The tradeoff |
|---|---|---|
| Rip-and-replace the EHR | Full data migration, staff retraining, payer re-enrollment, and a billing disruption window | Bundles automation into the migration, so you buy both whether you need both or not |
| Point tools | Standalone prior-auth tool, separate scheduling reminder app, separate denial management service | Each solves one stage in isolation and cannot act on signal from an adjacent stage |
| Hire more staff | Another billing coordinator, front-desk person, and credentialing coordinator spread across sites | Headcount grows linearly with location count rather than handling the work at scale |
| AI employee layer on top of your stack | Works on top of the EHR and tools you already run, front office and back office, intake through credentialing | No migration, no rip-and-replace, and a staff member finalizes every action |
Rip-and-replace the EHR
What it means in practice
Full data migration, staff retraining, payer re-enrollment, and a billing disruption window
The tradeoff
Bundles automation into the migration, so you buy both whether you need both or not
Point tools
What it means in practice
Standalone prior-auth tool, separate scheduling reminder app, separate denial management service
The tradeoff
Each solves one stage in isolation and cannot act on signal from an adjacent stage
Hire more staff
What it means in practice
Another billing coordinator, front-desk person, and credentialing coordinator spread across sites
The tradeoff
Headcount grows linearly with location count rather than handling the work at scale
AI employee layer on top of your stack
What it means in practice
Works on top of the EHR and tools you already run, front office and back office, intake through credentialing
The tradeoff
No migration, no rip-and-replace, and a staff member finalizes every action
This is the occupational therapy clinic automation model that does not require a migration event. The clinic keeps its stack, keeps its team, and adds the layer that closes the workflow gaps the EHR leaves open. Relay is human-in-the-loop by design: a staff member at your clinic finalizes every claim, every appeal, and every submission. The AI employees are healthcare-specific and aware of OT CPT codes, the GP modifier, authorized-unit burn-down, and pediatric Medicaid rules.
Works on top of Fusion, WebPT, and Raintree, never instead of the EHR you already run.
Relay is not an EHR. AI employees layer on top of the platform and clearinghouse you already use, never instead of them.
Layer AI employees on top of Fusion to close the gaps its authorization reports leave open. Fusion's auth reports surface expiring approvals but do not auto-initiate renewals or alert the front desk in time. The AI employee tracks the auth, drafts the renewal, and routes no-show and late-cancel fee handling the calendar cannot. Fusion is one of the most common EHRs in multi-location pediatric OT. Relay adds the occupational therapy clinic automation layer Fusion's own stack does not include.
WebPT tracks authorizations but does not proactively alert when visit counts approach the cap, and scheduling cannot see remaining authorized visits. AI employees add the visit-cap blindspot alert and the eligibility-to-auth handoff WebPT leaves between staff, and triage Therabill denials. Works on top of WebPT for occupational therapy without replacing it.
Raintree requires authorization updates in multiple places and shows all-org patients rather than filtered provider schedules. AI employees consolidate auth tracking and surface the next action across locations. Raintree automation for occupational therapy groups means your coordinators see one queue, not one per site.
TheraOffice has real-time auth-expiration alerts but manual payer communication still dominates and charge capture leaks on incomplete documentation. AI employees draft the payer communication and flag billing-relevant note gaps before the claim.
TheraPlatform has no proactive auth alerts and no cross-clinic authorization consolidation; it is best suited to solo or small practices. AI employees add the tracking and consolidation a scaling group needs.
ClinicSource has no prior-auth tracking and no built-in eligibility verification, so missed-auth denials are caught too late. AI employees add the missing tracking and a pre-visit eligibility sweep on top of the existing clearinghouse connection.
Prior-auth follow-up falls through the cracks and denied claims lack in-platform resolution guidance. AI employees add systematic auth follow-up and a denial-resolution queue on top of Tebra.
Prior auth is entirely manual with no expiration alerting, and groups past roughly 10 clinicians outgrow its reporting. AI employees add the auth alerting and multi-location denial visibility SimplePractice does not provide at scale.
AI employees also sit on top of the non-EHR tools an OT group runs: Availity and pVerify for eligibility and PA submission; Waystar, Office Ally, Change Healthcare-Optum, and TriZetto for clearinghouse and denial management; Updox, SRFax, and Documo for referral and PA fax; Weave, Klara, Solutionreach, Textellent, and Spruce for patient communications; CAQH ProView, Modio Health, and Medallion for credentialing; Phreesia, IntakeQ, and Jotform for intake. The AI reads across all of them. A staff member finalizes.
How we build it.
We start from the problem you feel, then build the fix on the systems you already run. Discovery and your first working AI employee take 2 to 3 weeks. The full build runs 8 to 12 weeks.
Start with a free 30-minute call
A short call about where the work is piling up and what that is costing you while it stays manual. No commitment, and you leave knowing where you would start.
Discovery and your first AI employee (weeks 1 to 3)
A few working sessions with your team. We map your operation end to end, every workflow across your locations, and find where the money leaks and what closing it is worth. You do not walk away with just a document. By the end of discovery we have built your first working AI employee on top of the systems you already run, so you see it pay off in your real setup before the full build starts.
The full build (8 to 12 weeks, start to finish)
We build the rest of the AI employees you mapped and wire them across every location. Nothing goes out until your team approves it, so you stay in control the whole way. One pediatric therapy client had all seven locations live within 90 days.
Proof: Sensory Speech & Occupational Therapy.
Sensory Speech & Occupational Therapy is a multi-location pediatric speech and OT group. Relay built two AI employees on top of their existing EHR and Drive, with a staff member finalizing every action.
The intake AI employee runs the full new-client lifecycle: it schedules clinic tours, gets ROIs signed, requests records from schools and prior speech and OT clinics, requests IEPs, sends medical orders to the child's PCP and follows up until signed, starts authorization renewals about a month out, and sends three-month progress reports and evaluations to PCPs for signature.
The internal auditing AI employee reviews every note nightly against the clinic's clinical requirements, confirms the billing code matches the note, and after billing finds and appeals denied claims and reconciles remittances against the EHR notes.
The group saw 100% claim accuracy, staff 33% more productive, claim denials down 12%, and faster documentation turnaround. Every result is attributed to the client's own reporting, and results vary by clinic.
AI employees for OT clinics: frequently asked questions.
Occupational therapy clinic automation means using AI employees to handle the high-volume, rule-based back-office and front-office work at every OT workflow handoff, from intake and eligibility through billing and credentialing, on top of the EHR you already run. A staff member finalizes every action.
They work on top of the EHR and tools you already run. They handle high-volume back-office and front-office work at every handoff (intake, eligibility, auth tracking, claim prep, denials, scheduling) and route each finished action to a staff member who finalizes it. You keep your stack and your team.
No. Relay is not an EHR and never replaces one. The AI employees layer on top of the platform you already run, reading and acting across it. Nothing is ripped out.
The AI does the drafting and the watching. A staff member reviews and approves before anything goes to a patient, payer, or claim. The AI never submits autonomously.
Yes. They track units used versus units approved and the expiration date for every active authorization, flag patients inside their last two visits, and draft the re-auth packet for staff to submit. Expirations stop turning into denials 30 to 60 days later.
Yes. They run eligibility about 72 hours before each visit and again the morning of the visit for Medicaid, because pediatric Medicaid coverage can change month to month with income recertification. They also draft payer-specific PA requests for staff review.
They watch the schedule against credentialing, remaining authorized units, and the waitlist. When a cancellation lands they draft the fill-the-slot outreach and send auth-aware reminders ahead of each visit. Staff approves every message.
No. Relay is not an AI scribe and does not author clinical documentation. It works the back office and front office. After a note is signed it can flag a note missing a billing-relevant element before the claim is built.
They pre-audit every claim (CPT and GP modifier, auth-number match, diagnosis consistency, NPI and credentialing) before it reaches the clearinghouse. Then they classify and draft responses to CO-50 and CO-97 denials, two of the highest-volume OT denial reason codes, for a billing coordinator to submit.
Yes. It closes the visit-cap blindspot and the eligibility-to-auth handoff WebPT leaves to staff, and it triages Therabill denials. All of this runs on top of WebPT without replacing it.
Pricing is a recurring monthly fee, not a one-time build. The entry point is a free 30-minute call where we show you exactly where your operation is leaking before any build is scoped.
The first 2 to 3 weeks are discovery: working sessions to map your operation and build the first AI employee. Full builds run 8 to 12 weeks.
It is custom-built for multi-location pediatric OT. It is healthcare-specific and aware of OT CPT codes, the GP modifier, authorized-unit burn-down, and Medicaid pediatric rules. It is not a generic automation tool with the vertical swapped in.
A new EHR requires a full migration (data conversion, staff retraining, payer re-enrollment) and bundles automation into the rip-and-replace. Relay adds the AI layer on top of the EHR you already run: no migration, no disruption window, and a staff member still finalizes every action.
See where your OT group is leaking.
It's a free 30-minute intro call, no commitment. We map your specific operation and show you exactly which workflow stage is leaking the most revenue, whether we build for you or not. The work is built for healthcare, and a staff member at your clinic stays in the loop on every claim.