Learn how Always Keep Progressing transformed patient onboarding from two weeks to same day with automated intake, freeing staff for in-person care.
faster intake process, from weeks to the same day
Previously missed entirely
Previously manual (days), or skipped
February 20, 2026
5 minutes
Always Keep Progressing front office team was drowning in intake paperwork. A five step onboarding process in Central Reach meant chasing parents for missing documents, sending intake links manually, and spending nearly full days on the phone following up. New patients took almost two weeks to get fully onboarded, creating bottlenecks that slowed growth and pulled staff away from serving families already in the clinic.
On paper, the process looked manageable. Send intake link. Parent fills out forms. Collect documents. Verify insurance. Schedule first visit.
In reality, each step created friction. Parents would complete the intake forms but forget to attach required documents. Staff would send follow up emails that went unanswered. Phone calls stretched into phone tag that lasted days. Insurance verification happened manually, if it happened at all before the patient arrived.
"It was kind of complicated," Gabriela Castro, Clinic Manager, recalls. "It took almost two weeks to get a patient working because sometimes we were missing documents."
The inconsistency made planning impossible. Some patients sailed through in days. Others stalled for weeks. And every stuck file meant more time on the phone, more follow up tasks piling up, more attention pulled away from families already receiving services.
Gabriela's team found themselves trapped in a reactive cycle. Instead of delivering exceptional customer service to patients in the clinic, they spent hours chasing paperwork from patients who hadn't yet walked through the door.
When Gabriela discovered Solum Health, she saw an opportunity to hand off the administrative chase entirely. The platform would handle intake link distribution, document collection, parent follow ups, and insurance eligibility verification automatically.
The transition required some adjustment. Learning any new system takes time, and the team faced initial challenges getting comfortable with the platform. But Solum provided self guided training videos and an interface designed for clinic staff without technical backgrounds.
"It's a really easy platform," Gabriela explains. "It's like self guided. We also had a video that was like an isolation of how it works. So right now we just feel comfortable using it."
The key difference from their old process was consistency. Solum followed the same steps every time, never forgetting to follow up, never letting a missing document slip through the cracks. Parents received automated reminders. Documents got flagged immediately when incomplete. Insurance eligibility ran automatically in the background.
The transformation in onboarding speed was dramatic.
Patients who previously took nearly two weeks to fully intake now complete the process same day. The five step workflow that required constant staff intervention now runs on autopilot, with the team stepping in only when a parent requests human assistance.
The insurance verification numbers tell the automation story clearly. In February 2025, Always Keep Progressing ran zero automated eligibility checks, all was manual and took too mush time of the admin staff. By December 2025, the platform processed all their verifications automatically, catching coverage issues before patients arrived rather than discovering problems at the front desk.
For a pediatric practice where insurance complexity runs high and parents juggle packed schedules, removing friction from intake directly impacts how many children access care.
The real measure of operational improvement isn't just faster intake. It's what happens with the time that comes back.
Gabriela's team no longer spends full days tethered to phones chasing documents. That capacity now flows toward the work that actually requires human presence and judgment.
"We can just focus on customer service when it comes to the patient here in the office," Gabriela describes. "Things that happen regular here in the office, interacting and customer service, completing another kind of task that we have to do here. Basically being here for the therapist and the clients."
Front office staff greet families without distraction. Therapists get the administrative support they need between sessions. Problems that arise during visits get immediate attention instead of competing with a queue of intake calls.
The shift repositioned the front office from paper pushers to patient experience specialists.
Streamlining intake wasn't just about internal efficiency. The families going through the process felt the change too.
Parents now receive a single link that guides them through everything. Questions get answered through the platform, with the option to request a live representative at any point. No more confusion about which forms to complete or which documents to upload. No more wondering whether the clinic received their information.
"The feedback from the patients is like kind of easier for them," Gabriela notes. "Just with that link, and then if they have any question they can just ask for an in person representative. That is really easy for them and for us."
Easier intake means faster conversion from inquiry to scheduled appointment. Always Keep Progressing now onboards new clients faster, which means more children receiving therapy sooner.
For pediatric therapy practices, growth typically comes with administrative headaches. More patients mean more intake files, more insurance verifications, more document collection, more phone hours.
Always Keep Progressing broke that pattern. The practice can now scale patient volume without proportionally scaling administrative burden. The automated eligibility checks running in December represent capacity that would have required significant staff time just months earlier.
Gabriela sees the foundation for continued expansion. "We're going to grow our intake process on the new clients since it's kind of faster, and they've been following up with the patients. So we have more and more with the patients now."
The math works differently when intake runs itself. Marketing can drive more referrals without overwhelming the front desk. Therapists can see more patients without administrative bottlenecks delaying access. Growth becomes sustainable instead of stressful.
Always Keep Progressing solved a problem that plagues specialty clinics everywhere: the gap between clinical capacity and administrative capacity. Great therapists can only help children who actually make it through intake and onto the schedule.
By automating the document chase, the follow up calls, and the insurance verification that consumed staff hours, Gabriela's team reclaimed time for work that technology cannot replace. Human connection with families in the clinic. Real time problem solving. The warmth and professionalism that keep patients coming back.
For Gabriela, the verdict on automation is clear.
Watch Gabriela Castro's full interview on transforming patient intake at Always Keep Progressing
