WhatsApp chatbot for medical clinics in Brazil: the AI virtual secretary

Does the AI book the appointment directly on the medical clinic's calendar?

It can book, but by default it does not book on its own. Every account starts with direct booking turned off: the AI tells the patient it will confirm the time, the request shows up for the front desk to approve, and only the confirmed appointment gets a reminder. In a clinic, that is the safest way to start.

When you turn direct booking on, it books in two systems. On Feegow, the AI reads the free times for the next 7 days, records the appointment there and only writes “scheduled” after Feegow confirms the slot. You choose up to 12 appointment types it can book, such as consultation, return visit and evaluation. With Google Calendar connected, it hides the times when you already have an appointment.

Each connection to Feegow covers one professional and one location. A clinic with several doctors needs to check in the settings who the AI is booking for before turning the agent on at the front desk's WhatsApp.

Canceling and rescheduling follow the same logic. Someone who writes “I won't be able to come” has the appointment canceled on CertuAI's calendar, the slot is freed right away and the front desk gets a notice. To move from Tuesday to Thursday, the AI only swaps the time if direct booking is on and Thursday is free; if not, the Tuesday appointment stays and the front desk gets the request to adjust it. With Feegow, both requests become a notice to the team, because the calendar that counts is Feegow's.

With iClinic, ProDoctor and Doctoralia there is no integration: the AI logs the patient's request with name, health insurance, specialty and preferred time, and the front desk books it in the system. The patient leaves the conversation knowing the request was noted and who will confirm it.

What does the AI do on its own and what stays with the medical clinic's front desk?

The AI answers what repeats all day, such as the appointment price, health insurance, address and preparation, notes the requested time and reminds the patient of the appointment; the front desk takes over any conversation whenever it wants. If your question is what kind of virtual secretary exists for the practice, the comparison between a human secretary, a menu robot and AI is in virtual secretary on WhatsApp.

• What it does on its own. Answers from what you wrote in the Brain, by day, by night and on Sunday. What is not written it does not invent: it says it will confirm with the team. A patient who sends a voice message gets an answer to what was said, because the AI turns the audio into text first. On the return-visit window, it applies the rule of days you wrote for each specialty. At a medical practice that uses CertuAI, the AI answered 106 patient messages outside business hours in 7 days.
• Appointment reminder. A confirmed appointment gets a reminder 24 hours and 1 hour before. You can change those times and choose up to 3, between 15 minutes and 7 days before, and also turn on a notice the night before, at a fixed hour. The text is yours. If it asks for confirmation and the patient already confirmed in the conversation, the question does not go out again.
• Returning patient. Someone who wrote two weeks ago and comes back with a “hi, good afternoon” does not get the script from the beginning: the AI picks up from what they already said and the last topic of the conversation.
• When the front desk takes over. Just reply from the clinic's phone or press “Take over conversation” in the dashboard, and the AI stops talking to that patient. To hand it back, send #bot from the phone or press “Return to agent”. If nobody hands it back, it returns on its own after 1 hour, and you choose that period.
• What stays with the front desk. Confirming the time while direct booking is off, sorting out the health insurance authorization and password, delivering test results and calling the patient when the return visit is due. CertuAI has no automatic message today that looks for a patient because the clinical return visit expired or the follow-up exam date arrived: your team is the one who pulls that patient back. When someone cancels, the slot is freed on the calendar, and the texts for the team to notify whoever was waiting are in messages to notify whoever was waiting for a slot.
• Instagram and Messenger. The same AI also answers the clinic's Instagram Direct and Messenger, on any paid plan starting from Start, in the same inbox as WhatsApp.

Does the clinic's chatbot comply with the General Data Protection Law?

Brazil's General Data Protection Law, the LGPD (Law 13,709 of 2018), does not prohibit serving patients on WhatsApp: it treats health data as sensitive data and asks for greater care with it. The clinic is answerable under the law, as the controller of the data; CertuAI is the processor, which handles the data on the clinic's instruction. What the law says, article by article, is in patient data on WhatsApp and the law.

• Who sees the conversation. Only people who log in to the clinic's account. The conversation stays in the dashboard, not on the phone of whoever answered that day, and each team member logs in with their own access. You can give view-only access, without replying or changing anything.
• Photos and tests. The photo the patient sends goes into a closed file that only opens for someone logged in to the clinic's account.
• What the AI does not do. On a health account it does not diagnose, does not recommend medication and does not say whether a test result is normal, so the conversation does not turn into written clinical guidance.
• What stays with the clinic. Telling the patient how the data is used, deciding how long to keep it and responding when the patient asks to see or delete their data.

Can an AI agent on WhatsApp answer a patient's clinical question?

It should not, and on a health account CertuAI's AI does not answer: it handles the administrative side, such as calendar, price and health insurance, and when the patient describes a symptom it says in one sentence that it does not assess symptoms here and offers to book the appointment or pass the question to the team. These limits apply on their own, without you writing anything: the AI never diagnoses, never recommends medication, never calculates a dose and never says whether it can wait.

When there is a sign of an emergency, such as chest pain, shortness of breath, fainting, seizure, sudden slurred speech or bleeding that will not stop, the first line of the reply is this, before any question: “This may be urgent. Call SAMU (Brazil's emergency ambulance service) at 192 now or go to the nearest emergency room.”

If the message talks about wanting to die, hurting themselves or being in crisis right now, the reply starts with a different sentence: “I'm so sorry you are going through this. You can talk right now with CVV (Brazil's suicide prevention line) at 188, free, 24 hours a day. If there is immediate risk, call 192 (SAMU) or 190, or go to the nearest emergency room.” After that the AI does not offer a time slot again in that conversation, and the team is notified.

You do not need to turn anything on. These limits apply on their own when the account is marked as a clinic or when the business name is health-related, and they take precedence over your instructions only on these points: price, health insurance and calendar stay the way you wrote them. Veterinary clinics are left out, because SAMU serves people. How this works at a mental health practice is in WhatsApp chatbot for psychiatrists.

Can the AI agent analyze a photo of a skin spot the patient sent?

No: the AI looks at the photo only to know what arrived, keeps the image for the team and replies that it does not assess photos or tests here, offering the appointment.

When a photo arrives, the AI receives a description of what appears in it and the text that can be read, such as the name of a test on paper or of a medication on the box. That is so it can understand the request: is it a prescription, a result, a spot. On a health account, the platform rule forbids saying whether it is normal, whether it is serious or whether it can wait, even if the patient insists or says they work in health care.

The photo is not lost. It stays saved in the conversation, and you see the original image in the dashboard, not just the description. The file is closed and only opens for someone logged in to the clinic's account. If a sign of an emergency comes with the photo, such as shortness of breath, fainting or bleeding that will not stop, the first line is the SAMU 192 one.

In dermatology, photos arrive every day. What works is to write in the Brain the sentence the AI sends after receiving the image, for example: “I received the photo. The doctor evaluates it, at the appointment. Would you like me to check a time?”. More in what the AI does when the patient sends a photo or test, and the care needed with this kind of data is in patient data on WhatsApp and the law.

Can the clinic's AI agent say how many sessions the treatment will take?

Not as a forecast: the number of sessions is a clinical decision, and the AI only repeats what the clinic wrote, preferably as a range (“6 to 10 sessions, defined at the evaluation”), never as a promise.

The platform rule for a health account forbids the AI from guiding treatment. There is no separate rule in the system just for sessions: what it says about this comes from your Brain. If nothing is written, it does not guess a number; it says it will confirm with the team.

Writing it as a range has a practical reason. The patient asks “how many sessions?” to work out how much they will spend. An exact number said by message becomes a commitment, and when the evaluation points to a different amount, it is the clinic that seems to have changed its mind. The range, followed by a time for the evaluation, answers the question without promising anything.

The same goes for health insurance that covers a number of sessions per year: write the rule the way the plan writes it, and the AI repeats it without making anything up.

Related questions: can the agent answer a patient's clinical question?, can the agent estimate how many sessions the patient will need? and what does the agent do when someone writes in crisis?

What CertuAI measured on clinic and practice WhatsApp

CertuAI measured when patients write on WhatsApp at 17 clinics and practices that answer with CertuAI's AI: 28.2% of messages arrived outside Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., almost 3 in 10. If the front desk works those hours, that's the part that waits until someone comes back.

Source: CertuAI service database, 17 clinics and practices, 19,259 patient messages on WhatsApp from Jul 30 to Sep 30, 2026, measured Oct 1, 2026. Business hours are Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, in each clinic's time zone. Test accounts, test contacts and imported history are excluded.

What changes in the clinic with an AI agent?

What changes is who answers first: the message no longer waits for you and is answered right away. Here are four everyday situations at the clinic before and after the CertuAI agent.

What does a conversation handled by the AI look like?

What does the WhatsApp agent do for medical clinics?

It handles the customer service that is yours today. You teach the business once in the Brain, CertuAI's knowledge base, and the agent answers patients your way, with your rules.

What questions do patients send on WhatsApp?

They are always the same, and the agent answers each one on its own. These everyday messages at the clinic no longer depend on you having your phone in hand.

How does the agent start answering at the clinic?

In three steps, on the same day. No installation, no code and no changing the number patients already know.

How much does an AI agent on WhatsApp cost for medical clinics?

The Start plan costs US$ 75 per month and already includes the WhatsApp agent, your business's Brain, the CRM, automatic follow-up and the AI assistants, which come with every paid plan. Pro costs US$ 120 per month and adds the landing page, the wallet and 10 people on the team instead of 5. No lock-in contract and no setup fee.

What needs to be ready before turning the agent on at the clinic?

The agent answers what is written, and nothing beyond that. Have these points defined before you connect WhatsApp.

• The list of health insurance plans accepted by specialty, and the plans the clinic stopped accepting
• Which appointments and procedures are private even for people with a plan, with the price of each
• The return-visit rule: within how many days the patient comes back with no new charge and in which specialties
• What requires a prescription, referral, authorization or password before booking
• Each professional's calendar, with working days, times and appointment length
• The triage rule by complaint: which symptom goes to which specialty

Whether the agent books the appointment directly on the calendar or collects everything and the front desk confirms the slot afterward.

The most common mistake: Registering the health insurance as accepted by the whole clinic. Almost always the plan covers one specialty and not another, and the patient who heard yes finds out at the front desk that the appointment is private. Read how to fix this.

Medical clinic FAQ

More about medical clinics

All the clinic questions CertuAI has answered

To get started

Message templates for patients

How to do it on the clinic's WhatsApp

Questions about the AI, the rules and the price

Which AI is best for each case

CertuAI compared with other options

AI on WhatsApp by specialty

In what other fields does the CertuAI agent work?

In any business that serves customers on WhatsApp, because the Brain is written by you. These fields have a day-to-day closest to yours.

Where can I read more about CertuAI's WhatsApp agent?

These pages explain the same agent from another angle: how it works, price, common questions and comparisons between platforms.

• Ready-made Brain for clinics and medical practices, 21 open entries to copy
• Demo CRM with clinic examples, to try without signing up
• How the AI WhatsApp chatbot works
• CertuAI plans and prices
• How much it costs to put AI in your business
• WhatsApp AI guides, step by step
• AI blog for small businesses
• Compare WhatsApp chatbot platforms
• All fields served by the CertuAI agent