How The Midtown Practice Turns Voicemails Into Text It Can Triage Fast

The Midtown Practice, founded by Drs. Dan Goodman and Julia Samton, is a busy group psychiatry and psychotherapy practice in Midtown Manhattan, and a busy practice lives on how fast it gets back to people. Rather than replaying voicemails one by one, the team uses Spruce voice-to-text transcription to process and respond to patient messages efficiently, then hands them off to the right clinician using internal notes. Between prescribers, therapists, and nurse practitioners doing collaborative care, that handoff keeps the practice responsive on the days the phone never stops.

A bit about the business…

We are a group psychiatry and psychotherapy practice, so we see people dealing with issues like anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma, or who simply are dealing with various life stresses or challenging situations. Some people come to us for therapy, some for medication, and some for both—known as “combination treatment”.

Together, our group of psychotherapists and psychopharmacologists are committed to helping our clients live with greater fulfillment, vitality and peace of mind. Curiosity, warmth, flexibility, compassion, and professionalism are essential personal characteristics of our clinicians. Our team is particularly committed to staying abreast of the latest research and clinical techniques, continually working on improving our skills and expertise to ensure our clients receive the best and most effective possible care.

How long have you been doing it?

We have been doing this independently for close to two decades. After years of working alongside each other, we decided to join forces and start our group practice, The Midtown Practice, 6 years ago.

What first brought you to Spruce?

We were looking for an easy-to-use voicemail and communication system with voice-to-text transcription. After being dissatisfied with answering services, we moved to Spruce and haven’t looked back.

How do you use Spruce at work?

The voice-to-text transcription system is great for efficiently processing and responding to messages from patients or potential clients. We use it for messaging with patients. We also use Spruce for handing off messages from one team member to the next. It is a central part of our practice.

What is your favorite Spruce feature?

We are a group practice with psychiatrists, therapists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners and we do a lot of collaborative care where a patient might be seeing one person for psychotherapy and a prescriber for medication. The Internal Note feature is great, as it really helps with internal communication and also with passing on messages that come into the practice to whomever is best suited for responding.

What do you like to do most when you’re not working?

“When not working, I like to see and make art and crafts, including amateur glassblowing. I also love to get outdoors.” – Dr. Dan Goodman

“I enjoy time with friends and family, skiing, and travel.” – Dr. Julia Samton

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Spruce transcribe voicemails into text?
Yes. Spruce includes AI-enabled voicemail transcription on both the Basic and Communicator plans, so your team can read voicemails as text and triage them without listening to each one first.

How does voice-to-text transcription help a busy group practice keep up?
When messages arrive as text, anyone on the team can scan them quickly, respond, and pass them along, instead of one person sitting through every recording in order. That shared visibility is what keeps a high-volume practice from falling behind on callbacks.

How does a group practice hand off messages to the right clinician?
Internal notes let the team pass a message to whoever is best suited to respond, which matters in collaborative care where a patient might see one person for therapy and another for medication.

Can Spruce support therapists and prescribers working together on the same patient?
Yes. Secure team chat and internal notes let psychiatrists, therapists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners coordinate on shared patients inside one system, so nothing gets lost in the handoff between medication and therapy.

You can learn even more about The Midtown Practice at https://midtownpractice.com/.

New to Spruce? Try us out FREE for 14 days: https://l.sprucehealth.com/startspruce