Atlantic Health has an AI agent call patients before their colonoscopies

July 2026 — Atlantic Health has started letting an AI agent make the reminder calls before colonoscopies. Here's what launched, what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of July 13, 2026)

Reach: in the first 30 days, 43% of patients called answered and confirmed their identity, and 39% confirmed they would attend. (Atlantic Health)
Staff time: time spent on these calls fell 38%, the release says; AMA reports 39%. (AMA)
Cost: not disclosed.

The problem

Colonoscopy prep starts seven days ahead and varies with a patient's conditions and drugs, Eric Steinberger, Atlantic Health's chief marketing officer, told HCI Innovation Group. "Twenty percent of all colonoscopy procedures were getting canceled," he said, many because patients hadn't followed the prep steps. He called each one "sort of like the financial equivalent for us of a plane traveling with an empty seat."

"Colonoscopy prep is uniquely complex - every patient's journey is different, and there are so many steps to complete before the procedure," Orla Seidel, Atlantic Health's director of digital marketing, said in the release. "This isn't just about efficiency; it's about making sure our patients get to the finish line of this potentially life-saving procedure."

"In every practice and with every human, there's always some variation in how the prep instructions are given," Ravish Parekh, MD, an Atlantic Health gastroenterologist, told the AMA. "AI has standardized all of this."

What launched

The release calls this Atlantic Health's first AI agent for outbound calls to patients. The agent calls a week before the procedure to confirm the appointment, encourage patients to review prep materials and answer questions.

It answers more than 80 clinical and operational FAQs approved by Atlantic Health, drawing on the system's own knowledge base and not on internet data, according to the release. It speaks several languages, including Spanish. "It's trained only on what we tell it," Parekh told the AMA. Activities are logged in Epic, so care teams can see who was reached and who needs follow-up.

The agent doesn't schedule anyone. "It didn't take an action and actually schedule the patient," Artera president Tom McIntyre told HCI. Steinberger said it was trained "in a walled garden" so it couldn't "go off, learn something on its own."

Atlantic Health set up a control group: about half of scheduled patients got AI calls and the rest got the standard process, the AMA reported.

What Atlantic Health says changed

Beyond the 43% and 39% figures, the release says 7% of patients asked the agent questions in the first 30 days. The AMA, reporting the same period, says 18%. "We thought they would just confirm and hang up, but now 18% of the patients contacted by the AI agent ask questions," Parekh said.

"We were genuinely surprised that so many patients engaged with the agent," Parekh also told the AMA.

Steinberger told HCI that in the first six weeks, 44% of patients answered, which cut the outbound calls agents had to make by 40%. McIntyre said Artera would look to add capabilities "so that it can actually complete the action itself."

What went wrong

7% or 18%? The release and the AMA give different shares for the same 30 days.
Is it agentic? McIntyre called it "a prime example of agentic AI in practice." Steinberger said: "I wouldn't say that what we employ is agentic AI."
What we don't know yet: the control-group results, the change in cancellations (AMA says they "have also fallen" but gives no number), and the cost.

Our follow-up question for Atlantic Health

What did the control group show about cancellations, and which questions figure, 7% or 18%, is right?

Sources

Atlantic Health, “Atlantic Health Reduces Colonoscopy Screening Gaps Using Artera's AI Agents,” March 30, 2026. atlantichealth.org
HCI Innovation Group, Pietje Kobus-McAllister, “Atlantic Health system goes agentic AI for patient engagement with Artera,” July 9, 2026. hcinnovationgroup.com
American Medical Association, Brian Justice, “How AI clears the way for colonoscopy screening,” July 13, 2026. ama-assn.org

Disclosure: [not in copy] Editor placeholder