How Pelvic Therapy Specialists ended waitlist burnout and grew lead conversions by 15%
Pelvic Therapy Specialists used Penciled to eliminate the manual waitlist work consuming 50% of PCC time—freeing their small team to focus on patients, convert more leads, and maintain schedule utilization even while short-staffed.
Overview
Pelvic Therapy Specialists, a boutique pelvic health PT clinic in Colorado on WebPT, used Penciled to automate their manual waitlist—eliminating a process that consumed 50% of PCC working hours. With that time freed, their team focused on lead conversion, driving a 15% increase in new patient conversion rate. Schedule utilization held steady even while down a front desk team member, and the practice replaced their outsourced overflow call service entirely.
At a glance
- Organization: Pelvic Therapy Specialists
- Region: Colorado
- Team: 5 providers, 3 PCCs (shared schedule management throughout the work week)
- EMR: WebPT
- Core operational challenge: Manual waitlist management consuming 50% of front desk capacity
- Primary goals: Fill cancellations without burning out PCCs; convert more new patient leads
- Results:
- 50% of daily PCC tasks automated
- 15% increase in lead conversion rate
- Schedule utilization held stable during front desk staffing shortage
- Outsourced overflow call service replaced
- 24/7 patient self-scheduling for follow-up appointments
About Pelvic Therapy Specialists
Pelvic Therapy Specialists is a boutique pelvic health physical therapy practice in Colorado led by Sandra Shevlin, DPT. The practice has 5 providers and focuses on specialized pelvic health PT, serving a patient population that requires thoughtful, hands-on care. Three PCCs share front office responsibilities across the work week, handling everything from lead calls to scheduling to waitlist management.
Before Penciled, the front office relied on a manual lead tracking spreadsheet, a manual waitlist spreadsheet, and a 3rd-party remote receptionist service to keep the schedule full. It worked—but just barely.
Before Penciled: stuck on the treadmill
Ask anyone on the PTS team what life looked like before Penciled and the answer is the same: the waitlist was consuming everything.
"The biggest change we wanted to implement was a new system for the waitlist, as it took up at least 50% of PCC's daily tasks. Filling gaps from cancellations was the biggest drain on our resources."
The problem wasn't that the team was doing the job poorly—they were doing it extremely well. Manual tracking and measuring systems kept schedule utilization high. But the cost was steep: PCCs spent half their working day on repetitive outreach that left little room for higher-impact work like converting lead calls into new patients.
Sandra, the owner, was simultaneously managing the front desk with a 3rd-party overflow call service and applying constant pressure on PCCs to work through the list.
"Before Penciled, what was most important for the front desk was to answer calls as promptly as possible and call as many people on the waitlist as possible. Our strategy was using 3rd-party remote receptionists and pressuring front desk to really put effort into calling people on the list."
From Sandra's vantage point across the business, the picture was clear: the team was stuck on a treadmill they couldn't step off.
"Getting PCCs off the stationary treadmill and freed up to focus on higher-impact initiatives—that was the objective."
How Penciled entered the picture
Sandra found Penciled through her own research. The Y Combinator backing was the signal that made it worth a call.
"Y Combinator backing gave us the confidence to reach out. At its core, Penciled is a solution that removes the PCC busy work, freeing us up to focus on the issues that truly move the needle."
The thing that captured their attention
For all three respondents, the hook was the same: end-to-end automation of the cancellation process.
"The automation of the system drew me in. I loved that it would automatically detect a cancellation within WebPT and reach out to people on the waitlist for that appointment—which up to this point was completed manually by PCCs on site."
"Mostly the idea of having AI fill our empty slots."
One concern Sandra raised was worth noting: handing a stranger access to a database containing sensitive HIPAA information was genuinely nerve-wracking. But trust was built quickly through the Penciled team's transparency and hands-on approach.
Launch: hands-on onboarding built around PTS's workflow
Penciled takes a hands-on approach to onboarding—embedding with new customers, learning their workflows, and building features and customizations tailored to how that specific practice operates.
For PTS, that meant working closely with the team to phase the rollout around their patient population. The waitlist module was the immediate priority—it addressed the single biggest operational drain right away—while Penciled continued developing the plan of care module to fit PTS's specific clinical model.
"The level of front-end customization needed to align Penciled with PTS's philosophy, model, and approach was far from a simple flip of a switch. That said, the customization was also what made it work for PTS specifically: a modest upfront investment of time for significant long-term savings."
Requests were addressed and shipped fast—a stark contrast to the overflow call service PTS had been relying on, where getting even basic changes implemented felt like "banging our heads against a wall."
"As issues or potential changes were noticed, we immediately brought these up to the Penciled team and they were addressed and implemented quickly. We could see in real time how the system learned and the changes in the verbiage it used with patients."
On-site with every customer
Penciled's standard onboarding process includes an in-person visit to every new customer's practice. The team spends time on-site—shadowing operations, understanding the day-to-day realities of how the clinic runs, and implementing changes in real-time alongside the staff who will actually use the product.
"Having Shawn come all the way out to Colorado from California to meet us in person, shadow the clinic, and implement changes in real-time was a level of customer service I have never experienced."
"Shawn and his team have blown me away with their level of effort to meet our needs and have really listened to what actually works for the people using the software."
For a team that had grown used to software vendors that were slow to respond and hard to influence, this responsiveness landed differently.
"Someone who is responsive to feedback from the people actually using it—that is what WebPT folks lack. Your team has been extremely friendly, helpful, efficient, and responsive."
Results: freedom to focus on what actually moves the needle
50% of daily tasks automated
The most immediate impact was felt on the front lines.
"The time it took for PCCs to manually call/text everyone on the waitlist when a cancellation occurred took up 50% of working hours for us, and suddenly that was freed up to focus on patients in office, lead calls, and other items that had been put on the back burner due to lack of time."
"At the initial implementation, when we were just using the waitlist module, I felt like it was worth it. It freed up so much time for the PCCs—I no longer felt like I was drowning every day in the mountain of tasks that needed to be done. I felt like I could finally breathe and do the biggest part of my job the most effectively, which is convert lead calls into new patients."
Lead conversion rate up 15%
The time savings translated directly into business outcomes. With PCCs no longer buried in cancellation outreach, they had capacity to focus on the work that grows the practice.
"We anticipated a significant drop in schedule utilization, yet it has hardly moved—which we believe is a testament to our PCCs already doing an excellent job manually filling gaps through our tracking and measuring systems. With less time spent on the busy work of filling cancellations, PCCs have been freed up to focus on faster outreach and follow-up with leads, driving our lead conversion rate up 15%."
Schedule stability through a staffing gap
During a period when PTS was down one front desk team member, Penciled absorbed the administrative load that would have otherwise fallen on an already-stretched team—keeping schedule utilization stable.
Patient self-scheduling for follow-up appointments
PTS kept control of scheduling initial evaluations—that human touchpoint matters for their model. But for follow-up appointments, self-scheduling has been a genuine improvement for patients.
"Patients love being able to schedule appointments online and being able to see all of the possible appointments available to them, allowing them to schedule times that work best with their schedule, rather than having to choose the best of the times that we were verbally offering. It also decreases instances of phone-tag with patients that do not have their schedule with them."
Operational changes: not a flip-the-switch solution
PTS found that implementing Penciled required real operational adaptation—and they were candid about it.
To protect their ability to save cancellations before they became gaps, PTS moved to accepting cancellations via phone call only (rather than text or email). This gave PCCs the chance to intervene. They also learned to be careful about sequencing: canceling multiple appointments back-to-back could cause the system to send texts in rapid succession, creating confusion about which slot a patient was being offered.
"The other unexpected element was the degree of change management required within the operations team to see it through to full implementation."
Ashley's take was direct: the changes were worth it, because they addressed a real pain point.
"The implementation of any new system will create changes to formerly held operations, but I was very open and flexible to these changes as it addressed and fixed a big pain point within our clinic and for my position specifically."
Replacing the overflow call service
One tangible cost savings: PTS was able to drop their 3rd-party outsourced overflow receptionist service entirely.
"We were able to drop our outsourced overflow PCC reception service. At a similar cost, Penciled delivers a better experience for both patients and our PCC staff overall."
"Well, saving us money on not using 3rd party, helping to fill the schedule better so more money there."
Was it worth it?
"I absolutely believe it was worth it. Just the waitlist system alone was worth it. Add on the scheduling system and I am so happy that we implemented this. I would chafe against going back to our old system. It was clunky and time-consuming."
"I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
Impact on the WebPT decision
Like many practices, PTS had started questioning whether WebPT was still the right platform. Penciled changed that calculus.
"It goes from unbearable to workable. It has made it easier to stay on WebPT for a little longer."
Sandra acknowledged that PTS might eventually move to a different EMR. Her priority: bring Penciled with them.
"WebPT itself is sometimes extremely hard to work with and has a lot of issues itself. Enough that our clinic may eventually move away from that platform and to another one. Having Penciled no matter where we decide to land would be extremely beneficial."
Sandra also offered a sharp take on the broader competitive landscape:
"EMRs will remain the operational backbone of any clinic and that is not changing. But incumbents rarely lead the next wave of innovation. They are built for cash flow, compliance, and retention—not speed—and that creates a real opening for AI-native platforms like Penciled. The platforms that last are the ones that use an early wedge, scheduling automation in this case, to work their way deeper into the workflow and build the kind of entrenchment that makes ripping them out genuinely painful."
Looking ahead
Sandra has a clear vision for what she wants from Penciled next: a clean analytics layer—plain-language reporting that ties scheduling behavior to business outcomes and tells management what's working and what isn't.
And both would encourage other practices not to wait.
"Do not wait for perfect. The technology is moving faster than most clinics are, and the cost of sitting on the sidelines is quietly growing now but will gain steam and compound."
Advice for other PT practices
"Don't hesitate—this is a game changer."
"The ideal fit is a clinic that cares about managing operations well but feels like the front desk is stuck on a treadmill they can never get off. If your PCCs are smart, motivated people spending half their day chasing cancellations and filling slots manually, that is exactly who Penciled was built for."
"I would definitely recommend Penciled, especially from an operational role. It works great for our small, pelvic-specific clinic, but I can also see how it could be beneficial for all sizes of PT practices."
As Ashley put it most directly: Penciled didn't just save time. It saved sanity.
"As a Patient Care Coordinator, Penciled saved my mental health and stopped the burnout. We were spending 50% of our day manually reaching out to patients, trying to fill cancellation gaps every single week, and it never seemed like enough. I could finally breathe and focus on the most important part of my position—converting lead calls to new patients."
