Data · First-party

What a practice's phone line really handles

Real numbers from the call logs of a primary care practice: how many calls come in, when, what patients want, and how they answer appointment reminders. Anonymized, and only percentages built on at least 30 cases.

2,073 calls, October 3, 2026 to November 5, 2026 · Updated November 6, 2026

calls on an average weekday

19%

of calls came after hours

0:34

median call length

When patients call

The phone peaks at 10 AM

10 AM took 14.9% of the day's calls, more than any other hour.

Show as a table

Hour	Share of calls
12 AM	0%
1 AM	0%
2 AM	0.6%
3 AM	0%
4 AM	0%
5 AM	0%
6 AM	0%
7 AM	0%
8 AM	1.8%
9 AM	6.9%
10 AM	14.9%
11 AM	13%
12 PM	11.9%
1 PM	12.5%
2 PM	11%
3 PM	10.3%
4 PM	7.6%
5 PM	4.5%
6 PM	2.9%
7 PM	1.4%
8 PM	0.2%
9 PM	0.3%
10 PM	0%
11 PM	0%

Share of all calls by the hour they started, practice's local time.

Why patients call

What callers wanted

Each of the 536 requests taken on a call, sorted by what the caller asked for.

Book a visit30%
Sales reps and other businesses13.6%
Question or message for the office11.9%
Reschedule or cancel11.4%
Other11%
Prescription refill8.4%
Records, results or forms7.1%
Pharmacy6.5%

Share of requests. A request is what the caller left for the practice to act on.

The rest of the picture

Short calls, hang-ups and reminders

Most calls are short. Half lasted between 0:18 and 1:07, and 32% were over in under 20 seconds.
45% were settled by Lydoh on the call, with no follow-up needed from staff.
36% were handed to a person at the practice because the caller needed staff.
72% of callers who hung up were on a mobile phone, so a text back could reach them. The rest were landlines or internet phone lines.
40% of patients answered their reminder text, half of them within 16 minutes. 33% confirmed and 7% asked to reschedule or cancel.
4% of requests asked for the doctor by name rather than the front desk.

Methodology

How the numbers are made

Every inbound call the practice's Lydoh line answered. Calls dropped on our side and misdials are left out.
After hours means outside the hours the practice posts, in its own timezone.
Reasons for calling come from the request Lydoh wrote down on each call, sorted into the groups above.
We publish totals and percentages only. A percentage needs at least 30 calls, requests or texts behind it, or it is left out.
This is one practice's line, not a national survey. Use it as a real data point next to your own.

Data is licensed CC BY 4.0. Cite it as: Lydoh, “Medical Front Desk Call Data,” https://lydoh.com/front-desk-phone-report.

FAQ

Questions about the data

How many phone calls does a medical office get a day?

In our data, the primary care practice's line took about 79 calls on an average weekday. Volume depends on panel size and how many providers the practice has, so treat this as one real data point, not a national average.

What time of day do patients call the doctor's office most?

The busiest hour was 10 AM, which took 14.9% of the day's calls. Calls clustered late morning and through the early afternoon.

How many calls come in after hours?

19% of calls (385 of 2073) arrived outside the practice's posted hours.

Where does this data come from?

From the call logs of an independent practice that uses Lydoh to answer the phone and agreed to share anonymized numbers. We publish only totals and percentages, never a caller, a phone number or a call. A percentage appears only when it rests on at least 30 calls, requests or texts.

Keep reading

See your own practice's numbers

Lydoh answers every call, takes requests, texts back callers who hang up and sends appointment reminders, and your dashboard shows the time and revenue it saved. Compare what a missed call costs or see appointment reminders.

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