How Tampa Bay Area Counseling Scaled to 5 Locations – and Achieved a 9× ROI – with Spruce
- Specialty
- Mental Health
- Practice Size
- 5 Locations 30+ Clinicians
- Spruce Plan
- Communicator
Return on investment from staffing savings alone
Estimated annual savings in personnel costs
Scaled on a two-person admin budget
Of front office staff time saved from workflow automations in one year
Average time to return patient calls and text messages
Appointment scheduling turnaround
Executive Summary
How Tampa Bay Area Counseling Scaled to 5 Locations – and Achieved a 9x ROI – with Spruce
Tampa Bay Area Counseling (TBAC) Group is a mental health practice serving adults, teens, and couples across central Florida. Faced with rising patient demand, missed calls, and the operational strain of managing multiple locations, the practice turned to Spruce for its all-in-one communication platform.
The results: five full-time locations operating on a two-person administrative budget, an estimated $130,000 in annual staffing savings, and a 9× return on investment.
- High call volume leading to missed calls
- Difficulty scheduling patients on time
- Insufficient administrative oversight of staff response times
- Lack of HIPAA compliance across patient communication
- Decreased call volume and accelerated scheduling through text messaging
- Improved client response times using voicemail transcription, missed-call text-back, and internal notes
- Complete visibility into each patient interaction, all in one platform
- Unified view across teams and locations in a platform designed for HIPAA-compliant communication
Spruce has drastically changed the way we are able to speak to patients. A five-minute text-back time was the dream before Spruce. With Spruce, we were able to make that a reality.
Victor Diaz Head of Marketing, TBAC Group The Challenge
A phone-first system falling short for patients and staff
Three years ago, TBAC Group was managing three locations with a primarily phone-centric communication system that was failing both patients and staff. High call volumes led to missed calls, delayed scheduling, and frustrated patients who were seeking mental health support at a vulnerable post-pandemic moment, culminating in missed revenue for the practice.
Behind the scenes, the TBAC practice owners had no unified view of patient communications, no easy way to coordinate across 30+ clinicians, and only limited oversight into staff response times. Seemingly simple tasks, such as staff wanting to ask a clinician a question before scheduling an appointment or needing to find more information about a patient's bill, had to be managed via email or in person. This added to the workload of front office staff, who were already struggling to handle a rising volume of calls and patients waiting in the office. Scaling to additional locations with the current staff felt out of reach with the outdated phone system they were using.
The existing workflow and limited tools made it difficult to consistently deliver the level of support the practice envisioned for each patient. Victor Diaz, Head of Marketing at TBAC Group, explained that the goal was for every patient – regardless of when they called or which location they contacted – to feel fully supported throughout their mental health journey. However, slower response times often created friction at critical moments.
I think the response time is the biggest thing. A lot of patients, if they're calling in, they're usually in need of mental health support.
Victor Diaz Head of Marketing, TBAC Group The Solution
Modernizing front desk operations with Spruce
To solve these challenges, TBAC Group decided to implement Spruce to modernize its front desk operations and build a communication workflow capable of growing with the practice. The results were notable:
Faster response with text messages
Before Spruce, front desk staff felt the pressure of managing hundreds of calls each day to schedule appointments. With Spruce's missed-call text-back feature, staff can exchange scheduling information quickly and multitask managing patient inquiries. Staff now respond to more than half of incoming calls via text — dramatically reducing time spent returning calls and reviewing voicemails. When a call is missed, staff send an automated response template within minutes, keeping new-patient intake moving without interruption and improving the overall experience with the practice.
Voicemail transcription
Rather than listening to every message in full, staff use Spruce's AI-powered transcription to review voicemails in less than half the time. Front desk staff can also copy and paste key points of the transcript into internal notes for clinicians, allowing faster follow-up, more efficient triage, and a reduction in duplicate work triaging each patient message.
Automated responses
After-hours call flows, phone tree directories, and automated responses available via Spruce's Communicator plan help triage requests and handle routine inquiries without requiring staff intervention, freeing the team to focus on higher-value patient interactions. TBAC has saved their front desk staff at least 40 minutes per person each week in the past year by reducing repeated manual tasks with automated messages.
Collaborative inbox
More than 80% of staff use Spruce's internal notes and team chat features to coordinate across locations, assign tasks, and share patient context — all within a single platform for HIPAA-compliant communication. Before Spruce, there was no centralized way to document and track team requests — staff relied on in-person conversations or emails that were easy to miss or lose track of.
All that information is already in Spruce, all they gotta do is look it up. Staff know the backstory, so they can help the patient faster and better.
Victor Diaz Head of Marketing, TBAC Group Conclusion
Enabling growth without compromising the patient experience
Spruce helped TBAC Group incorporate text messaging, AI transcription, automated call workflows, and a collaborative inbox — streamlining how their team communicates and increasing overall productivity. The practice has been able to expand to five locations, while maintaining only two administrative staff and consistently adhering to their goals of responding to missed calls from patients within five minutes.
- Scaled from 3 to 5 locations on a 2-person admin budget, saving an estimated $130,000 per year in personnel costs, resulting in a 9× return on investment from staffing savings alone
- 60+ hours of front office staff time saved from workflow automations last year
- Average response time reduced to <5 min to return patient calls and text messages
- 48-hour appointment scheduling turnaround