InTouchNow · Guide
Migrating from InTouchNow to MedReception AI
Expanded from the UK to the US, Canada, or Australia? A practical guide to moving phone AI from InTouchNow to MedReception AI: numbers, EMR, retraining.
Section 1
When a switch makes sense (and when it does not)
If your practice still runs in the UK on NHS rails, stay with InTouchNow. It is built for GP practices and integrates directly with NHS Digital, EMIS, SystmOne, myGP, Accurx, Surgery Connect, and Engage, with UK and international accents and voice in 33 languages. Nothing here changes that recommendation. This page is for a specific situation: you already run InTouchNow in the UK and you have opened, acquired, or expanded into a location in the United States, Canada, or Australia. Those markets sit under different privacy regimes and a completely different EMR ecosystem, and that is where InTouchNow does not follow you. In that case you are not really replacing InTouchNow, you are adding a phone AI purpose-built for the region you just entered. Keep InTouchNow where it fits, and use MedReception AI for the US, Canadian, or Australian side of the operation. The rest of this guide covers how to stand that second footprint up cleanly.
Section 2
Why the US, Canada, and Australia need a different agent
The gap is not voice quality, it is jurisdiction. A US location has to operate HIPAA-aligned; a Canadian one under PIPEDA, PHIPA, or provincial acts like HIA; an Australian one under the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles. Those are not settings you toggle on a UK product, they shape how call data is handled, stored, and summarized. MedReception AI is built for exactly these regimes. It is also built for the EMRs these regions actually run: athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, Epic, Elation, Cerbo, Hint, Tebra, AdvancedMD, and ModMed, rather than EMIS or SystmOne. On top of that sit 30-plus specialty templates, so a dermatology, orthopedics, or primary-care front desk gets triage and routing language that fits the specialty. The AI family (Katie for instant answering, Annie after-hours, Victoria for voicemail summaries, Sallie for scheduling) answers in under a second with unlimited simultaneous calls, so no expansion-driven call spike sends patients to hold.
Section 3
Porting your numbers without dropping calls
Your new-region location almost certainly already has a published local number on patient paperwork, directories, and referral pads. You do not want to change it. The clean path is to port or forward that existing number to MedReception AI rather than issue a new one. Practically, you confirm who currently controls the number (your carrier or, if it was set up abroad, whoever provisioned it), submit the port with matching account details to avoid rejection, and keep the old routing live until the port completes so no call is lost mid-transfer. Where a full port is slow or impractical, start with call forwarding to the MedReception AI line, verify the AI is answering and summarizing correctly for a few days, then complete the port. Handle each region's numbers separately: your UK lines stay pointed at InTouchNow untouched. Only the US, Canadian, or Australian numbers move. That separation keeps the two footprints independent and lets you cut over one location at a time instead of all at once.
Section 4
Re-mapping the EMR and rebuilding call flows
This is the step that does not transfer from your UK setup, because the destination system is different. InTouchNow was wired into EMIS or SystmOne; your new location runs something like athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, Epic, or Tebra. Expect athenahealth and eClinicalWorks to often land in one to three weeks, and most other EMRs in three to six weeks. MedReception AI produces structured call summaries you paste into the chart, and it makes no autonomous chart changes, so your staff stays in control of the record. Alongside the EMR work you rebuild routing to match the new office: which provider or department each call type goes to, how urgency and triage are handled, after-hours coverage with Annie, and voicemail-to-summary with Victoria. Do not copy your UK triage logic verbatim, referral pathways, urgency thresholds, and appointment types differ by country and specialty. Treat the new location's flows as a fresh build informed by, not cloned from, what you ran in the UK.
Section 5
Retraining staff and running both footprints in parallel
Your team already trusts an AI on the phones, which shortens the learning curve, but the day-to-day differs. Instead of Accurx or Surgery Connect workflows, front-desk staff now work from MedReception AI summaries dropped into a US, Canadian, or Australian EMR, with routing and triage tuned to that office. Bailey AI handles onboarding, so walk each location's staff through where summaries land, how to adjust routing, and how escalations reach a human. Run a parallel period: keep InTouchNow serving the UK unchanged, bring the new region up on MedReception AI, and review the first week or two of real calls and summaries before you retire any interim forwarding. Nothing about the migration forces you off InTouchNow where it still fits, this is additive coverage for markets it does not serve. If you are standing up a US, Canadian, or Australian location and want to see the summaries, routing, and specialty templates against your actual EMR, book a MedReception AI demo and we will walk your specific setup.
US, Canada, or Australia? MedReception AI is built for you
InTouchNow serves UK and NHS practices well. If your practice is in the United States, Canada, or Australia, MedReception AI is the region-native fit. Hear it handle your own call scenarios.