athenahealth Launches Agentic Patient Communication Tools Across Its Provider Network, Which Serves One in Five Americans

New capabilities provide patients with 24/7 access to front office AI agents to improve patient engagement, simplify scheduling, and ease administrative burden for practices

BOSTON, February 19, 2026–(BUSINESS WIRE)–athenahealth today announced the next generation of its AI-native patient engagement suite within athenaOne ®, designed to simplify how patients and practices communicate. The expanded suite includes new text and voice capabilities that let patients connect with a virtual assistant at their doctor’s office to ask basic questions or schedule appointments—embedded directly in existing athenaOne workflows. These features make it simpler and faster for patients to manage their care while lowering staff workload and improving productivity for practices.

“Patient–provider communication still operates much like it did decades ago, and that model can’t scale in today’s environment as practices get busier,” said Paul Brient, chief product and operations officer at athenahealth. “Our AI assistants can handle these routine interactions reliably, reducing unnecessary work and making the system more dependable for both patients and care teams.”

The next generation of AI-native athenaOne patient engagement features include:

Patient Conversations, set to deliver both text and voice functionality to give patients a faster, more convenient way to connect with their doctor’s office. The texting feature, currently in alpha and available more broadly during the first half of this year, combines real-time two-way texting and secure web chat to answer common patient questions. When needed, the patient can be handed off directly to staff for additional follow-up, without losing context. The voice feature, available in the second half of this year, is a virtual front desk assistant that delivers multilingual support for inbound calls, handling the same routine requests without wait times. Following the initial text and voice functionality, advanced capabilities such as real-time language translation and intelligent task automation will let staff prioritize the interactions that matter most.

“These new text and voice conversation capabilities will transform how we connect with patients by providing instant responses that speed issue resolution and save valuable time. For quick exchanges, texting makes communication significantly more efficient and greatly improves the patient experience,” said Lesley Terry, practice manager at Red River Family Practice in Austin, Texas. “For our practice, these tools will reduce phone call volume and backlog by allowing us to handle conversations promptly without putting patients on hold. Overall, this is transformative for both patient convenience and practice workflow.”