Is AI Everything It’s Cracked Up to Be? Why Private Practices Need to Get Started Now.

Hi Practice Pros.

It's pretty early in the morning here in the UK and I've just been putting finishing touches on a surprise day out for Mrs. S.

We've been missing our boys lately and they're both away at the minute, so I want to do something uplifting for the two of us.

As I was clearing out my emails from this week, I came across a question that I wanted to share with you. It's from Zoe, who's an absolute gem of a podiatrist here in the UK.

Zoe wrote to me and she said,

"Hi, Adrian. I'm really not sure when to start using AI or what to use it for. It seems to change every day and everybody's talking about it and I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Should I wait? Should I dive in? And if I dive in, how do I go about it?" 

And she goes on to say;

"I'm worried I won't understand it or that I'll get it wrong and I can't afford to get it wrong."

OK, Zoe’s concern is super common, so I figured out that I'd just take a couple of minutes to answer her directly. 

And if you, like Zoe and are unsure where to begin with AI, then keep watching and I think you'll find this really helpful.

So let's cut to the chase.

We've probably heard a lot about AI, some of it is hyped up and some of it is criticised.

But what if I told you that ignoring AI is a bit like ignoring websites in the late 90s?

Sure. Back then, businesses wondered if a website was really necessary.

Many who said ‘no’ quietly vanished from the map within just a few years.

Now, if you're a private practice owner, you can't afford to sit on the AI fence.

If you think about companies like Kodak, which dominated film photography but was hesitant for too long on digital, they filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

Or Blockbuster, who dismissed online streaming. Netflix took over and blockbuster are no more.

By the time both of those businesses tried to pivot, the world had moved on and, more importantly, another business had taken their slot.

Now I don't want you to end up as the next cautionary tale. AI is here to stay.

Now, Zoe mentioned that she feels overwhelmed and I totally get it.

Running a healthcare practice is no small feat.

You've got patient care, paperwork management. Invoices. You know that the list goes on and on, and if you're doing everything the old school manual way with emails, scheduling follow-ups, Excel, it just eats up your entire day and you either have to work more hours, or watch parts of your practice slip. Neither of which are great.

So in answer to the question, where does AI fit in?

I think the first thing to say is that AI isn't perfect, sometimes it hallucinates. If it can't find the exact information that it needs, it will fill the gaps with guesses.

But guess what?

That's why you remain the ultimate decision maker.

AI is like having a hard working junior associate. It'll draft your emails, create social media posts, even come up with marketing campaigns or adverts. Then you simply review and refine.

The beauty here is time

AI can work 24 hours a day without ever having a sick day or burnout, so you save hours, you reduce your stress and have more brain power available for higher level thinking like patients outcomes or team growth or personal time off.

So let's make this super concrete and apply the clinic freedom model.

Here are three easy ways to start integrating AI using the clinic freedom model.

We're going to start with.

Attract.

Can we use AI to attract the clients we wish to attract?

Of course we can.

We can get AI to write our blogs, generate images for us. We can use it to create articles and build authority. Template emails. We can use it to simplify our postings. Instagram and Facebook.

You can use AI in our blueprint section, where we look to convert leads into booked patients.

We can use it as a chatbot that is intelligent and can answer website visitors’ questions with facts.

We can use AI to generate our call scripts that we want our reception team to use, and we can also use it to roll out our red carpet welcome. For new patients before they even set foot into our clinic.

Then finally we can use it as part of our collaborate where we want to leverage other people's time and use the team to for us.

We can use AI to look at our recruitment adverts, our on-boarding. We can even use it for HR support and guidance.

Collaborate blueprint and attract, everybody will benefit from the time savings and consistencies.

Think of AI as an additional team member who handles your mundane tasks, leaving you to approve and polish the final output.

But here is an illustration -what is the risk of doing nothing?

Well, the problem that we have right now is that we don't know who is using AI and who isn't.

If you're not, you're having to increase your content to keep up and eventually you will burnout. This will be the path of late adopters.

In contrast to late adopters, we can have early adopters, that will utilise the ever changing world of AI to generate the content that they require.

Now we sit within this zone of time at the minute, we don't know because we're all sat in there who is generating their content with AI and who is working very, very hard or employing and spending more money to generate the content to keep up. We'll reach this tipping point and we will see that we will have businesses that will win and unfortunately businesses that don't.

Businesses that hold off on AI will soon be stuck in a no man's land of inefficiency or practices that embrace it keep moving forward, getting more done in less time.

And this point of no return is a little bit like having no website in today's digital world.

If patients can't book easily, can't find you online, or you feel you’re outdated, they'll head to a clinic that uses AI to streamline everything from scheduling to follow-ups and real time conversation.

Yes, AI is still evolving. But that's the exact reason it's such a golden opportunity right now.

It's like getting on and the ground floor of a new technology wave, and we can start small, we can let AI handle our drafts and repetitive tasks, you're still setting yourself up for a future where your practice can scale faster and serve patients better, giving you back the precious hours that you want every week.

So, if you've been unsure about where to begin or how to dip a toe into AI, let me invite you to a free personalised demonstration with Autena.

It will be a bespoke and tailored hands on walkthrough, specifically for you and your practice. You will get to play with features like automated chatbots, e-mail and call scripting. You can have your website analysed for SEO and see exactly how AI can fit into your daily routine.

You can play around, ask questions and figure out what is right for your business.

At the end of the free demo if you love it, great. You'll know exactly how to start implementing AI

If not, no worries. You will be at that stage much clearer and have a crystal clear idea of what's possible and where your priorities should be.

So why not check it out and see for yourself?

Remember, AI doesn't replace you. It's there to amplify what you can do. So if you're tired of manual tasks eating up your day, or if you're worried about being left behind, then this is your chance to step forward and get in at the ground floor.

Thanks for spending your valuable time with me. I hope this has been helpful and has answered questions you might have.

Let's keep finding smarter ways to grow your practice.

Book that free demo with Autena if you want to see what AI can do for you right now before everyone else catches up.

As for me, I'm Adrian Small, and I'll see you in the next video.