Nextech Unveils Agentic AI Capabilities for Patient Experience through Partnerships with Assort Health and EliseAI

Specialty practices gain a choice of two leading AI patient access platforms, unveiled at AAO 2026 in New Orleans

TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nextech, a leading technology partner for specialty healthcare practices, today announced new strategic partnerships with Assort Health and EliseAI to bring agentic AI to the front door of the patient experience 24/7. Clients now have a choice of two leading AI patient access platforms deeply integrated into Nextech’s specialty healthcare operating system and connected to the scheduling, intake, readiness, and communication workflows they already manage with Nextech.

Specialty practices face growing patient demand and persistent front-office staffing challenges. Missed calls, long hold times, and after-hours gaps turn patient demand into lost appointments and frustrated patients. With Assort Health and EliseAI, Nextech is integrating agentic AI capabilities into the specialty practice workflows providers already use to manage scheduling, intake, readiness, and follow up, while giving practices choice across leading patient-access platforms. Importantly, Nextech is enabling specialty practices to provide 24/7 patient access so patients can engage when it’s convenient for them, including outside of regular operating hours of practices.

“Every practice is looking for ways to improve patient access while relieving pressure on their teams," said Rusty Frantz, Chief Executive Officer of Nextech. "With Assort Health and EliseAI, we are giving practices the choice of two leading solutions, built into the Nextech operating system they already know and trust. This is an important step in bringing agentic AI into specialty practice workflows in a practical, connected way, and delivers on our vision to build an integrated ecosystem where the best capabilities work together as part of a unified experience.”

Nextech’s selection of Assort Health and EliseAI was driven by four key factors:

1. Choice – Specialty practices should have choice, and each platform brings distinct strengths. This allows practices to select the platform that best fits their workflow, patients, and operational priorities, with Nextech alongside them as a trusted partner.
2. Integrated – These partnerships are designed to connect AI patient access capabilities directly into the Nextech operating system through joint engineering and workflow design. Patient interactions continue seamlessly within the system practices already rely on every day.
3. Outcomes – Nextech is focused on helping specialty practices improve access, efficiency, and patient experience. These partnerships will help practices answer more patient inquiries, reduce front office strain, and keep schedules full, while giving staff more capacity to focus on higher value work.
4. Commitment – These strategic partnerships are a critical part of Nextech’s vision for agentic AI in specialty healthcare. Both are multi-year partnerships with shared roadmaps, joint go-to-market planning, and co-investment focused on bringing connected AI capabilities into the workflows specialty practices use to grow, operate, and care for patients.

“We’ve already built and deployed a deep integration with Nextech practices. What sets this partnership apart is what Assort brings to that foundation: our focus on healthcare shapes everything we build, and we’re live with hundreds of organizations, including 40% of the Fortune 20 healthcare enterprises. Every deployment strengthens our platform, workflows, and best practices. Nextech customers get more than an integration. They get a purpose-built ophthalmology platform and a team that knows how to adapt it quickly to the complexity of their practice,” said Jeff Liu, Founder and co-CEO of Assort Health.

"Every unanswered call is a patient who might book somewhere else or miss care they need. We support more than 20 million conversations a month, and leading specialty practices pick EliseAI after testing us against other vendors. This partnership brings our deep, live integrations with both Select/Cloud and Practice+ to practices of every size, so more calls turn into booked visits and more patients get seen,” said Minna Song, co-founder & CEO, EliseAI.

Nextech will showcase the new partnerships at AAO 2026, Booth 2027, Oct. 10-12 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Assort Health will be at Booth 3126 and EliseAI will be at Booth 1061. Specialty practices can also contact Nextech directly to learn how Assort Health and EliseAI will connect into Nextech workflows.

About Nextech  
Nextech provides intelligent, connected technology that helps specialty practices operate more easily and create meaningful patient experiences. With more than 25 years of expertise in ophthalmology, dermatology, orthopedics, plastic surgery, and med spas, Nextech blends specialty insight with thoughtful innovation to simplify workflows, reduce friction, and support practice growth. To learn more about Nextech and its intelligent, connected solutions, visit www.nextech.com.

About Assort Health

Assort Health is an AI agent platform for the patient journey, from scheduling and intake to referrals, forms, document processing, medication refills, and payments. It is built on more than 300 million specialty patient interactions, with models that update in real time to manage the operational complexity of healthcare. That foundation powers patient access across multi-site practices, multi-specialty groups, and health systems.

Customers see results including a 5% lift in appointment volume, a 115% increase in labor capacity, up to $4.3 million in revenue captured per 100 providers, 97% resolution rates, and 79% referral-to-appointment conversion. The platform integrates natively with leading EHR and practice management systems, including Epic and athenahealth, enabling deployment without disrupting existing clinical workflows. Provider groups and health systems turn to Assort when the complexity outgrows their existing tools. To learn more, visit assorthealth.com.

About EliseAI

EliseAI is an AI company transforming housing and healthcare — the two largest household expenses in America — through deep workflow automation. It serves specialty care groups, automating the end-to-end patient journey from the first inbound call through referrals, scheduling, insurance verification, chart prep, and follow-up. The company has handled over 100 million patient conversations to date, while delivering a better patient experience, freeing clinical staff to focus on care, and ensuring that no patient falls through the cracks. EliseAI crossed $200 million in ARR in 2026, marking five consecutive years of 100% year-over-year growth. The company is headquartered in New York with teams in San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Austin, and Toronto. To learn more, visit https://health.eliseai.com.

Contacts

Nextech
Ben Veghte
b.veghte@nextech.com

Assort Health
Kara Spak, 120/80 MKTG
assorthealth@12080group.com

EliseAI
Kuba Piwnik
press@eliseai.com