At 10:40 p.m. a parent finds your center on Google and dials the admissions number. They have spent the evening working up to this, and their adult child may be in the next room. If the line rolls to voicemail, they try the next center in the results. At 8:00 the next morning your coordinator calls back a number that no longer picks up.
Families have written about it. One parent wrote on r/AlAnon: “I spoke to admissions at this place, and they told me they would pass along a message for someone to give me a call “within fifteen minutes,” but that never happened.” Bob Poznanovich, formerly of Hazelden Betty Ford, told Behavioral Health Business that “we had people call up to 20 times to get care.”
Below is a script for that first call: the opening words, the safety question, five questions, the close, and what changes after hours. Print it, add your center's name, and keep a copy beside every phone that takes admissions calls.
Who is calling
Most first calls about someone else come from a parent, a spouse or partner, or a sibling. Some callers know a lot about what's been happening; others know very little. The person they're calling about may be sitting beside them, may not know about the call, or may have already said no.
That changes the coordinator's job. Nobody on this call is being sold a program. Someone who loves the person needs help choosing one thing to do next, and the coordinator makes that easy.
Before the phone rings
The script only helps once someone answers. Three settings decide that before anyone says a word.
- The night ring order. The admissions line rings the on-call coordinator's cell, not a desk phone in an empty office.
- What the voicemail says. The center's name, when a coordinator will ring back, and nothing about programs.
- The text back. Anyone who hangs up before a person answers is texted from your center's own number inside a minute: “Hi, it's MR returning your call. Is now okay, or would later tonight suit?” Keep treatment words out of it, because the preview may show on a shared screen.
Opening the call
Say the center's name, your first name and one open question. Then let the caller talk.
“Thanks for calling Riverbend, this is Marisol. What's going on tonight?”
If the caller pauses, or says sorry for calling so late:
“I'm glad you called. Take whatever time you need, I'm not in a hurry.”
Leave the list of programs, the address and anything about payment for later. The first minute belongs to the caller.
Ask about safety first
Before any admissions question, ask one plain question:
“Before we go on, is anyone in danger right now?”
If they say yes, the coordinator asks the caller to end this call and phone 911, or stays on while someone else in the house does. For thoughts of suicide, or any emergency about mental health, the caller can phone or text 988 at any hour. Have your clinical director approve the exact wording your team uses here, and print it on the script.
Let them tell it
Open questions bring out the story; yes-or-no questions get a short answer and a pause. SAMHSA's Treatment Improvement Protocol 35, its guide to motivational interviewing, names four habits that carry over to the phone: open questions, affirmations, reflective listening and summaries.
- Open question: “What's been happening these past weeks?”
- Affirmation: “Making this call took a lot. You're doing something about it.”
- Reflection: “So the last two weeks have been the hardest, and tonight you're worried.”
- Summary: “Let me check I have this right,” then the story back in three sentences.
A summary also tells the coordinator what they missed. If the caller corrects it, the correction is usually the most important part.
The five questions
Once the story is out, the coordinator needs a few facts to book a next step that fits. Ask them in this order:
- Who are you calling about, and what's their age?
- Where are they tonight, and in which state?
- Do they know about this call, and would they talk to us?
- Which program are you asking about: detox, residential or outpatient? Many callers don't know yet, and that's fine.
- What's the best number and time to reach you, and may we text you at this number?
Substances, amounts, medications and history wait for the assessment with a clinician. When the caller asks about the insurance card, the coordinator says your billing team answers that and offers to take a photo of the card by text.
What the coordinator never says
- Anything that pressures. No “we only have tonight”, no countdown, no talk of how fast spots go.
- A promise about how treatment will go. Admissions can promise a callback time. It can't promise a result.
- A diagnosis, or advice on medication or withdrawal. That is the clinical team's work.
- Whether someone is or was a client. When a caller asks if a named person is in your care, the answer is the same every time: the coordinator can't say without that person's written consent. The federal Part 2 rule sets strict limits here, so ask counsel to check the exact words.
- A label for the person. Use their first name or “the person you're calling about”, never a word for what they use.
Not ready tonight
Plenty of first calls end without an assessment, and that is a normal result. The parent may be gathering information tonight, or the person may have said no for now.
Before hanging up, give the caller something useful: the next family session's date, a short guide for loved ones, a callback time. Then ask permission: “Would it be all right if I checked in with you on Thursday?” Put that check-in on the calendar, naming who calls and when. Make the call or send the text on the day agreed. If they ask you to stop, stop, and record that on the inquiry.
Booking the next step
End every call with one specific next step, said back to the caller in a single sentence:
“I'll ring you at 9:30 tomorrow on this number, and if Jamie is willing, our clinician will do a 20-minute phone screening then.”
Then send a confirmation text with no treatment words in it: “Thanks for talking tonight. I'll call at 9:30 tomorrow. – MR”. Before the coordinator moves on, they log the inquiry: who called, who it's about, the program they asked about, who pointed them to you, and the callback time.
Handing the call off
When the call needs someone else, such as the clinician for a screening or the family program lead, use a warm hand-off. Tell the next person the caller's name, the story in brief, what was promised, then introduce them on the line. The caller should never tell the story twice.
If nobody is free, give a callback time rather than “someone will call you.” Then make sure that callback happens. The r/AlAnon parent above was promised fifteen minutes and got silence.
The on-call hours
The script is the same at 11 p.m. as at 11 a.m.; only the person answering changes. The on-call coordinator takes the call on their cell and notes it on the inquiry. Every callback due is picked up at the 7:00 handover.
When the on-call phone is already busy, the second caller still needs an answer. RehabSignal's AI receptionist answers it: it tells the caller first that it's your center's AI assistant, asks a few of your own pre-screening questions, books a callback and passes the caller to the on-call coordinator live. The ring order and the reply text for missed calls are part of how the phones work.
Keeping every coordinator on the same script
A script read once at training fades within a month. Three habits keep it in use.
- A single sheet at each phone. The opening, the safety question, the five questions and the close, nothing else.
- Two recorded calls a week. The admissions director listens with each coordinator and picks one thing to keep and one to change. In all-party-consent states, callers must hear a recording notice; have counsel review yours.
- One number at the morning meeting: time to first callback. A fast reply beats a polished one. In a Harvard Business Review audit of American firms, web inquiries waited 42 hours for a typical reply, counting only firms that replied. Replies sent within sixty minutes were roughly seven times likelier to reach someone who could decide than later ones.
The script gives your coordinators words to start from, not a speech. Change the words until your coordinators sound like themselves, and keep the order: listen, ask about safety, ask the five questions, and end with a time.
RehabSignal
RehabSignal writes these posts for owners, admissions directors and the coordinators on the phones at US addiction treatment centers. This one draws on families' forum posts, SAMHSA's motivational interviewing guide and a Harvard Business Review audit.
