Hospital call centre script for OPD bookings, in Hindi and English

The person who answers the phone sets the tone for the whole visit. A script keeps every call the same, busy Monday or quiet Thursday: the same steps, the same checks, and careful words wherever a mistake could hurt someone.

AIIMS New Delhi opened a phone call centre for appointments in April 2015 because most of its patients could not use its web portal or its IVR. Up to mid-2017, new patients who booked through the call centre turned up 46% of the time, twice the 23% rate for IVR bookings. Different patients used each channel, so that doesn’t prove cause, but it is a good reason to take the booking call seriously.

How to use this script

• Fill in everything in curly brackets, such as {hospital_name}, with your own details.
• Keep a fact sheet by the phone, approved by your medical superintendent: each doctor’s days and hours, fees, what to bring, the address, the schemes and insurers you accept, and common complaints with the department for each. Agents answer from the sheet and nothing else.
• Say आप, always, and use the caller’s name with जी. The agent’s lines use हम (we, the hospital), so they work for any agent.

The booking call, step by step

1. Greet with the hospital’s name

2. Find out who the appointment is for

Take the patient’s name, not the caller’s: it is often a son or daughter booking for a parent. For two bookings, finish the first before you start the second.

3. Find the doctor or the department

If the caller only describes a complaint, use the complaint list on your fact sheet (knee pain to orthopaedics, a child’s fever to paediatrics, blurred vision to ophthalmology), and book the general physician for anything not on it. Never say what the problem might be. If you hear chest pain, breathlessness or fainting, here or at any other step, switch to the emergency script now.

4. Offer two times

Two definite times get a quicker answer than “when would you like to come?”, and they fill the doctor’s day evenly. If neither suits, ask “सुबह, दोपहर या शाम?” (morning, afternoon or evening?) and offer two more. Confirm every day by its date: “अगले बुधवार” (next Wednesday) can mean two different Wednesdays, so say “यानी {date}, सही है?” (that is {date}, right?).

5. Read back the booking and the number

Read any other number back in two groups of five digits and wait for a yes. Say “booked” only once it is saved; if the time went to someone else meanwhile, apologise and offer the next one.

6. Say what to bring

7. Close the call

Ask before sending any message, and note the answer. Reminders can help: in a 2026 study at an Indian tertiary hospital, forgetting and not getting a reminder were the two leading reasons patients gave for missing appointments. Let the caller hang up first.

Rescheduling and cancelling

Change nothing until the caller says a clear yes. After a cancellation, ask “कोई और दिन दे दें?” (shall we give you another day?): many cancellations are reschedules in disguise.

Fee, timing and insurance questions

Answer only from the fact sheet. A wrong fee or timing becomes an argument at the counter, and a wrong answer about schemes or insurers costs a family money. Every promised call-back goes on a written list with a name against it.

When the caller is angry about waiting

1. Let them finish, without interrupting or defending.
2. Apologise once, for the wait, without excuses.
3. Give real information: patients ahead and a time range, worked out as our OPD queue guide explains.
4. Offer a choice: wait, step out without losing the turn, or a new time.
5. Hand over to a named supervisor if they are still upset.

Never blame the doctor or another patient, and never promise a time you can’t keep.

When a caller mentions an emergency

Stop the script, whatever step you’re on.

Then alert your emergency team or duty doctor at once with the caller’s number and what they said, and log it. Don’t keep the caller on the line for details: every minute on the phone delays help.

Warning signs to listen for, in the words callers use:

• chest pain or breathlessness: सीने में दर्द, भारीपन, साँस नहीं आ रही;
• fainting, fits or sudden weakness: बेहोश, दौरा, झटके, मुँह टेढ़ा, हाथ-पैर सुन्न;
• heavy bleeding, or bleeding or severe pain in pregnancy: बहुत ख़ून, प्रेग्नेंसी में ख़ून या तेज़ दर्द;
• poisoning, a serious accident, a burn or a head injury: ज़हर खा लिया, एक्सीडेंट, जल गए, सिर में चोट.

If a caller talks about ending their life, speak gently, don’t argue, give them Tele-MANAS (the national mental-health helpline) and 112, and tell a senior at once:

Four questions an agent never answers

What’s wrong with me?

Which medicine should I take?

Is it a boy or a girl?

Section 5(2) of the PC-PNDT Act, 1994 says no person may tell the pregnant woman, her relatives or anyone else the sex of the foetus “by words, signs or in any other manner”. A hint counts.

How is the patient in the ward?

A caller’s word is not proof of who they are. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, once its rules phase in by May 2027, the highest penalty, up to ₹250 crore, is for failing to keep reasonable security safeguards, according to the government’s summary of the DPDP Rules, 2025.

The one-card version to print

1. Greet with the hospital’s name and yours.
2. Ask who the appointment is for: name, age, new or returning.
3. Doctor or department; complaints go by the fact sheet.
4. Offer two times; confirm the day by its date.
5. Read back the booking and the number; say “booked” only once it is saved.
6. Say what to bring.
7. Ask about messages; close warmly.

Stop for any warning sign or talk of self-harm. Never diagnose, name a medicine, tell a baby’s sex, share an admitted patient’s details, or guess a fee or a timing.

Where an AI receptionist fits

DrMate’s AI receptionist keeps to the same rules: it answers in everyday Hindi and Hinglish, books into genuinely free times, reads the booking back and says “booked” only once it is saved. Emergencies go to your staff in red, and whatever it can’t answer goes on your call-back list, so your agents get the calls that need a person. This script is for those calls. Read what an AI receptionist does, and must never do, or hear it on our demo line, 080 6553 5931, where it answers as Sunrise Hospital, a sample hospital we made up.