What to Say on a Free 15-Minute Consultation Call

A free consultation call has three jobs: confirm the caller will pay your fee, learn enough about them to prepare, and leave them feeling that you are the person who can help. It should take 15 to 20 minutes, and a simple script will book most callers who are a genuine fit. The three things that sink new prescribers on these calls are talking too much, giving away free clinical advice, and flinching when it is time to say the fee.

Here is a six-step script you can run from your very first call, plus how to handle the fee, the silence, and the questions you are not allowed to answer yet.

What the consult call is actually for

The call is a screening and sales conversation, not a clinical visit, and the only screen that truly matters is whether the caller will pay your fee. Everything else is secondary.

Its three goals are simple: confirm they are comfortable with your rate, learn enough to walk into the intake prepared, and show them you are different from the last rushed med-check they had. By the time a prospective patient is on the phone, the hard part of getting them to find you and reach out is already done. They have often been searching for months. The call is mostly about not getting in your own way: being clear, being confident, and not treating them for free.

A six-step script you can run from day one

Run the call the same way every time and it stops being terrifying within a few months. The structure does the work, not your charm.

1. Open, then say the money first. After 30 seconds of small talk: "Before we get into it, I want to mention that I am out of network and do not take insurance. Is that okay?" If they ask what it costs, state your intake fee and your follow-up range, then stop talking. More on that silence below.
2. Ask the one big question. "Tell me a little about you. What led you to reach out?" Then listen for a few minutes. If they freeze, "give me the three-minute version." Take notes, because you will use them at the intake.
3. Show competence without giving advice. Use a few competency triggers: predict the rest of their story ("a lot of people who describe this also notice X, has that been true for you?"), contrast your style with a bad past experience without bad-mouthing anyone, and normalize what they are going through ("this is one of the most common things I treat") with a brief, anonymized example of a similar patient who is doing better. None of this is a treatment recommendation, which matters for the reason in the next section.
4. Give your approach in two or three minutes. "I think I understand the basics. Let me tell you how I work." Keep it general: medication when it helps and at the right dose, attention to sleep, nutrition, and stress, therapy where it fits. If they push for specifics, "I want the full picture before I recommend anything specific."
5. Hand them the floor, then go quiet. "I am confident I can help you feel better. What do you need to know to feel like this is a good fit on your end?" Answer each question, then stop talking, until they ask what the next step is.
6. Book it before you hang up. "Let me pull up my calendar." Ask what times definitely do not work rather than what is best, then close the loop. The confirmation should go out automatically with the visit details, the intake forms, and a request for a card on file. This is exactly what a booking system like Eureka handles for you: the moment you book the slot, the forms and the card-on-file request go out and flow back into the chart, so the patient is fully set up before they hang up and you are not chasing paperwork or payment later. Tell them you read the intake form closely so you can hit the ground running, which turns the paperwork into a sign that you take them seriously.

The fee-and-silence moment

The hardest two seconds of the whole call come right after you say your fee, and your job is to stay quiet. State your out-of-network status and your fee in the first minute, then say nothing.

The silence almost always means they are weighing the cost, not rejecting you. If you fill it by offering a discount, you have just told them your price is negotiable. If the pause really stretches, "I wonder if you are weighing the pros and cons right now?" invites them to say the real objection out loud instead of leaving you guessing. Keep one fee for everyone and skip sliding-scale offers on the call. When someone genuinely cannot afford you, point them toward lower-cost or in-network options rather than matching their desperation.

And the honest part: these calls feel awful at first. One new prescriber quoted her fee, heard "I did not think it would be that much," and got off the phone shaken. It gets easier, and holding your rate is the win, not the failure. The people who value the work enough to pay for it tend to be the ones who do the work to get better.

What you cannot say on a free call

A free screening call does not create a doctor-patient relationship, so you do not give a diagnosis or a treatment plan on it. No "here is what I would put you on," no ordering labs, no calling their primary care doctor, until they are an established patient who has completed a paid intake.

Demonstrate competence with general patterns and anonymized stories, never specific advice for the person on the line. When a caller pushes ("can you just call something in, or order my labs now?"), a friendly redirect works: "That is exactly what the first full visit is for." Most callers respect it. This is a liability line as much as a sales one, so confirm the specifics with your malpractice carrier, but the safe default is simple: clinical recommendations wait for the intake.

Keeping it to 15 minutes

Set the length out loud at the start and you will rarely run over. Tell them it is a quick 15-minute call to see whether you are a good fit, and keep an eye on the clock.

Near minute 13: "I have a couple of minutes left. If you would like to keep going, the next step is to book the intake." One prescriber says nearly everyone schedules right at that line. Do not get pulled into clinical questions; "I would need a full evaluation before I could speak to that" is a complete answer. If a caller keeps stalling, a gentle exit ("I have another patient I need to get to") plus an invitation to book or call back tomorrow filters for the people who are actually committed. Setting a calm time boundary is itself a preview of what working with you feels like, which anxious patients respond to more than you would expect.

Your consult call in one screen

• Open, then say your out-of-network status and fee in the first minute. Go quiet.
• Ask "what led you to reach out?" and listen. Take notes for the intake.
• Show competence with patterns and anonymized stories, never specific advice.
• Give a two to three minute version of how you work.
• Ask what they need to know to feel it is a good fit. Answer, then stop talking.
• Book on the call, and let the confirmation, forms, and card-on-file request go out automatically.
• No diagnosis, plan, labs, or PCP calls until the paid intake. Confirm specifics with your carrier.
• Keep it to 15 minutes. At minute 13, invite them to schedule.