Running reception across five clinic locations on five separate phone systems means missed transfers, confused callers, and no visibility across sites. Skin Institute moved to 3CX — one cloud PBX covering every location, with AI transcription and a central receptionist console.
Running a multi-site healthcare business is operationally complex at the best of times. For Skin Institute, with clinical teams spread across five Auckland locations, the phone system was quietly making things worse. Each location had its own setup — some with ageing on-premise hardware, some with basic VoIP lines — and transferring a call between clinics meant hanging up and redialling. Receptionists at one clinic had no visibility over whether staff at another site were available. When callers rang the wrong clinic number, there was no easy way to help them.
When Optimyze conducted a broader IT review for Skin Institute, the telephony situation was one of the clearest opportunities for improvement. The solution was 3CX — a cloud-hosted PBX that would bring all five clinics onto a single, unified phone system.
One Dial Plan, Five Locations
The 3CX deployment replaced the separate setups at each Skin Institute clinic with a single cloud PBX. Every extension across every location — reception desks, clinical coordinators, administration staff — sits on the same system with the same dial plan. A receptionist at one clinic can see the availability of staff at every other clinic, transfer calls directly, and set up conference calls across sites — all without leaving the 3CX console.
The auto-attendant was redesigned to route callers correctly from the first ring. Patients who know which clinic they need can select it from the auto-attendant menu. Calls that come in to the main number are routed to the most appropriate team based on time of day and availability — not to whichever phone happened to ring first.
AI Transcription for Clinical Administration Calls
Healthcare administration involves a high volume of phone-based coordination — appointment bookings, referral discussions, supplier queries, and patient callbacks. The 3CX AI transcription feature means every one of these calls is automatically transcribed and attached to the call recording. Clinical coordinators can review call transcripts when following up on a conversation, without relying on handwritten notes or memory.
For Skin Institute's administrative leadership, the transcripts provide an accurate record of patient interactions — supporting quality management processes and giving managers visibility into how calls are handled without needing to listen to individual recordings.
The Receptionist Experience
The most tangible day-to-day improvement for Skin Institute's reception staff was the switchboard console. In the 3CX web client, receptionists can see all extensions across all five clinics — who is on a call, who is available, and who is away. Parking a call and announcing it to a colleague at another site is a two-click operation. The anxiety of transferring a call blind — not knowing if the person at the other clinic is available — is gone.
Mobile for Clinical Staff Who Move Between Sites
Several of Skin Institute's clinical staff work across multiple locations in a single week. The 3CX mobile softphone app means their business extension travels with them — they're reachable on the same number regardless of which clinic they're working from that day, and outbound calls show their clinic number rather than a personal mobile.
A multi-site business shouldn't need a separate phone system for each location. 3CX treats all your locations as one — because that's how your business actually operates.
