What happens when patients start using AI faster than the medical practices treating them? In this episode, Tim Sawyer, a two-time Inc. 500 entrepreneur, former clinic owner, and Executive Vice President of Sales at Faster Outcomes, shares how AI is reshaping cash-pay health care. Tune in to learn how medical practices can use AI to improve consistency, support clinical judgment, and streamline workflows while maintaining personalized patient care. Discover how to evaluate AI solutions, rethink workflows, and embrace technology while preserving the human connection essential to patient care.
Listen to the full episode using the player below, or by visiting one of the links below. Contact ByrdAdatto if you have any questions or would like to learn more.
Transcript
*The below transcript has been edited for readability.
Intro: [00:00] Welcome to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. Legal issues simplified through real client stories and real-world experiences. Creating simplicity in three, two, one.
Brad: [00:13] Welcome back to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto, with my co-host, Michael Byrd.
Michael: [00:19] As business attorneys for health care practices, we meet a lot of interesting people and learn their amazing stories. This season’s theme is AI in Health Care. We’re bringing in people a lot smarter than the two of us to help decipher the business risk of using AI in a medical practice.
Brad: [00:36] And remember, Michael, because this is all so new, we don’t really have the client stories we typically have. Instead, we’re having conversations with people in the know where we work through a maybe once-in-a-lifetime shift in the world and in business. But before we bring on today’s guest, Michael, I love movies. Growing up, did you ever like a great action movie that had ninjas?
Michael: [00:59] Yes. I thought ninjas were cool. I don’t know if I have that level of passion that you have, but yeah. I mean, who doesn’t think a ninja’s cool?
Brad: [01:09] Right. Well, I found a story that proves it’s not too late for either one of us to become a ninja. Japan apparently is recruiting ninjas. More than 130 aspiring ninjas, ranging from age nine to 76, gathered in a Japanese town for the annual ninja certification exam.
Michael: [01:27] So there’s an annual certification exam to become a ninja. Do you know, Brad, if typing and tennis are on the exam?
Brad: [01:36] Well, I think so. I mean, a well-rounded ninja should probably be able to type and play tennis, so maybe.
Michael: [01:41] Amen.
Brad: [01:42] I’ll double-check that.
Michael: [01:42] Yeah.
Brad: [01:43] Yeah. Well, these people showed up hoping to live out their dreams, and they get bonus points for actually dressing the part, which proves that even in the ninja world, dressing for success counts, Michael.
Michael: [01:55] Yeah, so dress for the job you want, as they say.
Brad: [01:58] Exactly. Well said. The test included ninja history and throwing ninja stars at a target.
Michael: [02:04] Well, do you at least get graded for how fast and accurately you type your answers? I mean, I assume graduates receive something more official than a participation trophy.
Brad: [02:16] Yeah, I don’t know if they give you any points for how fast and accurately, you’re typing, but I’ll ask about that one, too.
Michael: [02:21] I’m looking for my angle.
Brad: [02:23] Yes, yeah.
Michael: [02:23] You know?
Brad: [02:24] But they do receive a scroll certificate. Apparently, nobody vanishes in a poof of smoke afterwards. Turns out becoming a ninja is not child’s play, though, although candidates range from children to older people.
Michael: [02:35] Okay. Well, where are you on that spectrum? You act like a child, but you’re obviously very old.
Brad: [02:41] Yeah. I would say I’m firmly in the old enough to know better but confident enough to try anyway category.
Michael: [02:48] Yeah, that may be the most accurate self-assessment you’ve ever given on this podcast.
Brad: [02:52] I think so, too. Michael, do you ever want to be a ninja?
Michael: [02:55] Brad, I’m a lover, not a fighter. I learned this from my tennis and typing, which it seems are not on the exam. What about you?
Brad: [03:02] Oh, yes to being a ninja. However, the more I think about it, the more I have concerns about the physical portion of the ninja exam. At this point in my life, the biggest ninja move is getting off the floor without making a sound.
Michael: [03:13] Yeah. It’s not a good ninja look that I have to help you put your luggage in the overhead bin with your bum shoulder.
Brad: [03:20] Let’s not talk about that.
Michael: [03:21] We’ve already had it on the air before.
Brad: [03:23] Oh, dang it.
Michael: [03:23] Yeah. Anyway, what does this ninja talk have to do with today’s guest?
Brad: [03:28] Well, maybe he can help us determine if AI can help us pass this ninja exam. It could study the history, analyze our throwing form and, maybe for you, your typing form, and generate a believable excuse as to why neither of us can actually touch our toes anymore.
Michael: [03:43] Okay. You stretched it. I got it. You brought us back to AI. Let’s bring our guest on. What do you think about that?
Brad: [03:52] Love it.
Michael: [03:53] Okay. Joining us today for the fourth time is our friend and the inspiration for our podcast. In fact, we call our compliance support bear Tim.
Brad: [04:05] Yes.
Michael: [04:05] You know, on the streets.
Brad: [04:06] Yes.
Michael: [04:07] Tim Sawyer is joining us. Tim is the host of the podcast Legal Keys. Tim was the founder and president of Crystal Clear, a software marketing and consulting company, which he sold in January 2021. Crystal Clear was not Tim’s first rodeo. He is a two-time Inc. 500 entrepreneur. He’s had PE exits with a combined valuation of over $90 million. He is currently the executive vice president of sales at Faster Outcomes and, as I mentioned, he truly showed us the ropes to get this podcast started a little over six years ago.
Brad: [04:49] That’s right.
Michael: [04:49] Tim, welcome back to the Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto.
Tim: [04:54] What an absolute honor. You guys look amazing. I love that bear. And it’s funny that you guys because the whole time you were telling that ninja story, I thought it was hysterical. Our chief technology officer came over from Uber. When you guys really start hanging out with people who are into AI, like really into next-dimension AI, every conversation ends the same way. He has an Iranian accent and says, “Oh, Tim, we could probably win that competition. I’ll create an agent.” And he would. His brain would go right to that. So he created what we call Captain. And by the way, it’s the most valuable team member we have. So Frank created Captain, and Captain can do pretty much anything. Captain could pass the bar. I’ll tell you right now.
Michael: [05:46] Wow.
Tim: [05:47] And it’s just amazing because that’s where every conversation goes. No matter what someone talks about some human doing, it always ends with, “Oh, it’d probably take me two days. We could win that.” And it’s like you don’t want to win the ninja competition. We’re trying to build health care.
Brad: [06:04] Yes, true.
Tim: [06:04] Focus on that. That’s the other thing. I could do that. Yeah.
Brad: [06:09] Well, I love that.
Tim: [06:10] Great to be here.
Brad: [06:10] Yes, and I love that you brought in AI talk and ninjas, but we have more important questions to ask you besides that. Did you ever want to be a ninja?
Tim: [06:20] Other than Halloween?
Brad: [06:23] No.
Tim: [06:23] Not so much. I’m in the Michael camp. I tend to focus on relationships, the lover side of the relationships, how I stayed married for 34 years.
Brad: [06:35] There you go.
Michael: [06:35] Yeah. There we go. All right, man, let’s get into it. We’ve had you on a bunch, but we haven’t had you on to talk about Faster Outcomes.
Tim: [06:44] Okay.
Michael: [06:44] And so I’d love for you to introduce Faster Outcomes. I know, of course, it does multiple things, but you have a bent in health care, and so I’d love to learn about that and who you serve and what problems you’re trying to help clients solve.
Tim: [07:06] Great question. And again, in all seriousness, I appreciate you guys having me on today. So what’s interesting is, as you guys know, I also have a little bit of experience as a clinic owner myself. I owned a men’s performance clinic for a little over three and a half years. We sold it and made a little bit of money on it, and what I realized is I have a newfound appreciation for the clinic owner who’s out there day to day serving patients. Having to face marketing is an absolute bear. As you know, compliance is a big challenge, and you need folks like you because it’s complex. I lived far away from the clinic that I ran. I feel like if I was in the market, it might have been a little different outcome. But the reality is this: what I discovered in my own clinic, and we see it, is that we’re trying to solve for really four things, right? One is, it’s interesting, guys. In the age of AI, the average patient, for the first time in history, either thinks they know or actually knows more than the provider because they have access to so much information, and that creates some complexity, right? Kind of like the internet in 1997, when someone could go to Kelley Blue Book and, for the first time ever, figure out what their car was worth, then go to the lot and say, “Okay, here’s what my car is worth,” and then the dealer guy would say, “Okay, is Kelley Blue Book going to buy your car?” Right? And then they would fight. So they would poo-poo all the research. And so now we have this dynamic where patients are coming into the clinic and saying, “Hey, here’s how you’re going to treat me,” and we need to figure that out.
Tim: [08:52] So there are four things that are really important. One is knowledge, right? We have to level up our knowledge and level up access to knowledge because consumers, and we’re going to use the term consumers for cash-pay medical folks, are more sophisticated or at least believe they are, right? Consistency across providers is one of the hardest challenges to solve. So in other words, the old joke is that if you get 10 doctors in a room, you’ll get 12 opinions on the same subject, right? That is what it is. And so if you’re in a clinic with two providers, the likelihood that they’re consistent in the way that they treat the same condition, either at the same time or over time, is very low. AI can help you with that, right? You need knowledge, you need consistency, and you need to track efficacy. One of the biggest challenges in cash-pay medicine is that we lose people and we don’t know why they stopped being treated. Did they die? Did they get well? Do they not have any more money, right? And we don’t have a really good way of showing visually and through communication how the person is actually performing better or worse, right? So you have efficacy, and then the last thing you need is sales enablement.
Tim: [10:05] Your average health care provider is great at diagnosing a challenge or a condition, but not great at explaining to the consumer the implications of that, the cost of that, and the benefits associated with why they should get treated. Right? So simply put, whether it’s Faster Outcomes or any other platform, the ability to quickly ingest an intake form, which gives you intent and medical history, combine that with labs, and then run that through pre-established protocols and the service menu of the clinic that’s providing those treatments, means you very quickly get an accurate and precise assessment of what’s going on with that patient, right? So the ability to display that assessment is really important. Now imagine it takes you one minute to do that, right? Versus sitting there and going through it.
Tim: [10:59] Now, these are doctors, and we’re not saying they shouldn’t… So part one is the assessment, and then showing a really good, well-thought-out treatment plan is where most clinics, including my own, failed. We can articulate it. The doctor can articulate it, but the nurse practitioner can’t articulate it the same way. The nurse can’t articulate it the same way. The front desk person can’t articulate it the same way. So what AI does and what Faster Outcomes does is level up performance in all of those areas, right? Now, they still have to perform due diligence. They still have to pay attention, but at least they have a starting point, right? Get the labs, get the intake form, run it through my established protocols that have been tested, tested, tested, tested, and then get an assessment of where they’re at and a treatment plan that makes sense with the benefits. And right down to the point, guys, where it says, “$4,682, circle, line, pay today, save 10%.” And so then, instead of sitting there and getting anxious and having their voice go up because they’re nervous talking about money, they just hand them the plan and say, “This is what our team has come up with. Are there any questions? I’m happy to walk you through it.” And so those pain points are consistent across probably any organization in the medical field. But once you have more than two people treating people, it’s a challenge. Does that make sense?
Brad: [12:21] Yeah.
Michael: [12:21] Yeah. I’m curious, as a follow-up to that, how do you deal with one consistency point: that independent judgment they need or they’re required by their license to have? So is there an ability to override? How does that consistency tool show up, and where does discretion fit in there?
Tim: [12:53] So discretion shows up in your own use of AI. Think about your own AI consumption when you’re lawyering. So once Colette, we call her Colette, creates the treatment plan, remember, the provider has the ability to chat with Colette and say, “Based on the documents uploaded or based on the treatment provided, I notice there is a cardiac event. What would be the…” And then you can start doctoring. Right? Will there be any adverse reactions? What are the contraindications? Is there anything I should explain that the patient should be concerned about? Right? And it’s not that the doctor doesn’t know this stuff at an intellectual level. It’s like anything in life. Applying the same logic and the same thinking and the same discipline 50 times a day, 40 times a week, whatever that number is, it helps to have someone sitting next to you. Just think about yourself as a lawyer, right? Have someone sitting next to you. You know what the answer is, but the level of comfort and confidence and the end work product is so much better if you guys could imagine if you guys worked next to each other all day.
Brad: [14:08] We would get nothing done.
Tim: [14:10] Kill each other. You’d kill each other. But when you say, “Hey, Mike, that case you worked on?” You would have that person next to you all the time.
Brad: [14:17] Yeah.
Tim: [14:17] And that’s what Colette is, right? It’s the ability to use independent judgment. That’s the whole point. Sometimes the best independent judgment is knowing what questions to ask.
Brad: [14:27] Yeah. So the idea behind it, because what resonates with me, and I’m sure with Michael, is that we’re a collaborative firm where, when we visit with people, we take in information. Often, more than one attorney is really discussing that process. What you’re saying is that Colette is that tool for a smaller practice, or even a bigger practice, to have someone to collaborate with when you don’t have to walk down the hall. Is that the best way to describe it?
Tim: [14:52] It is. We’re talking with a lot of veterinarians in that space as well, and it’s a huge challenge. Huge. Treating cats and dogs is actually crazy, and the pursuit of AI in veterinary medicine is insane. And if you look at the attractiveness of getting new veterinarians, it’s very difficult. Training them is also difficult. With any health care provider, nurse practitioner, whatever, it’s very difficult. Right? And what AI does is this: a cat comes in, it got hit by a car, and the young vet panics and doesn’t know exactly what to do. Well, imagine having a knowledge base, right? This is the application of AI. A knowledge base that has treated one million cats that have been hit in similar circumstances with similar injuries. It says, “Hey, here’s what you need to do. Stabilize. Give this medication.” And it just takes all the anxiety out of it, right? Because they have confidence in the information.
Tim: [15:54] And this is the other point that is really important: making sure that… The biggest challenge to adoption in health care is confidence in the work product, in the output. We do a lot of testing, testing, testing, with all different patient scenarios, to make sure that we’re getting the right outputs, right? We limit… It’s not like we’re providing people with what’s called a wrapper, right? You put a logo on it and then let them go out on the internet and find out. We don’t do that. Colette is very disciplined, with very specific guardrails on what information she can access. So being a great clinician, they have the ability to use independent judgment, but they also have someone, to your point, Brad, that they can collaborate with. Right? Imagine having five doctors sitting with you all the time that you could collaborate with. You’d get to a different place. Right? The crux of it is whether they believe in the outputs. And remember, there are only so many. We talked about how we’ve got an event coming up with Dr. Greg Chernoff. He’s a super smart guy, but he’s probably got 150 custom protocols in his clinic, right? You guys are familiar with this process. So we upload all the protocols that have been in his brain, right? They’re sitting in a folder somewhere. Here, there. And now imagine he’s got 10 mini Chernoffs working under him and he wants to get the same work product.
Brad: [17:29] Right.
Tim: [17:29] Well, the person’s got to go look through a book or something. And he’s very sophisticated. I mean, this is a very sophisticated, very smart man with the foresight to say, “I want to take everything that is on my website, everything that’s in all the books that I have, and everything in my files, and put it in one place. Then we want to have that be the work product.” So it’s not, to your point about independent judgment, that in many cases, the independent judgment should be to follow Greg’s protocol because he’s done it a million times. Well, here’s the protocol and you just go, “Oh.” It’s kind of like “Ask Greg. What would Dr. Chernoff do in this situation? Because that’s what you would do. If you had time and he wasn’t in surgery, you’d go ask Greg, and he’d tell you, “Hey, easy.”
Brad: [18:16] Yeah.
Tim: [18:17] “Step one, two, three, four, five.” It’s funny, the similarities to a lot of the things that you as an organization are trying to accomplish in terms of the collection of IP, right? We want to know all that we know all the time, and we want to make sure that everybody in the organization has access to all that we know all the time.
Michael: [18:36] Yeah.
Tim: [18:36] It’s the same thing.
Michael: [18:37] Exactly. Well, that’s a great point on what you said about AI adoption. Right
now, obviously, you had a good story explaining your perspective as a clinic owner, but there are a lot of… And you work with clinics obviously all across the country. What are organizations doing when it comes to AI? Are they sitting on the sidelines or just dipping their toe in? What are you seeing in the medical industry right now regarding AI adoption?
Tim: [19:03] We work with smaller cash-pay clinics, right? Whether they are med spas, functional medicine clinics, or longevity clinics, which are the growing category. It’s interesting. People are what I call very AI-curious, but they’re trying to figure out how it fits into their current workflows, so they’re still in that mode. And from an adoption standpoint, as a vendor, we need to make sure that we’re building tools that fit into their current workflows. But the shift that needs to happen, and you see it in some cases, is that the clinics are reimagining their workflows, right? So the conversation when you talk about Faster Outcomes is them saying, “Okay, does this integrate with my EMR?” Right off the bat, wrong question. In some cases, yes. We integrate with Zenoti and the bigger EMRs, sure. But the first place I would go in my workflow is Faster Outcomes because the only way they’re going to adopt it is if it makes more money. The only way is if it makes more… They want to know, “How do I have more time to myself and more money?” If we can solve for that, we’re in a good spot. So from an adoption standpoint, we’ve got to make it easy, but they have to understand the impact that using AI can have. So it’s not always about your current workflow. It’s reimagining, “What is my workflow, and what can I use AI for?” Right? And law is far ahead. Your average personal injury lawyer is getting to the point where they’re like, “Yeah, I don’t…” The last leg of that race is intake and having AI handle intake. And on the health care side, there are some clinics who are flirting with that now. In other words, a chatbot that’s not a human does the initial intake and encourages them to go to the initial form that they need to fill out to gather information. So it’s about, one, trying to fit into your current workflow. Two, it’s being aware that maybe there’s a new workflow that I could have. And the most important workflow is to provide an incredible experience for the patient, not an incredible experience for me. I’m the provider, right? Trying to make my life amazing is cool, but if I can make the patient’s life amazing, then I’m going to have more money, more time, and more fun.
Ryan: [21:51] Love it. I’m curious, putting yourself in the shoes of the people that end up hiring Faster Outcomes or are just colleagues, you’ve been in this industry for a while. What mistakes do you see clinics making when they’re trying to decide whether to adopt an AI technology or when they’re selecting a particular vendor or signing the contract? I’m thinking about the clinics that are AI-curious. How would you recommend they approach the process of exploring and adopting AI? What do they need to watch out for? So that’s a really good question and literally the most important one you could ask. It always starts with why, right? So I know why I’m talking to you. You’re the health care provider, and I would like you to use my technology. That’s my why, right? I want to make the world a better place and sell you stuff. And so the question is, if I can get the clinician to think, “What are you trying to accomplish? Where is the pain point?” So in other words, what they’ll do is look at AI and go, “Oh, it can solve this one thing, so I’ll use it for that.” But then it goes back to how that fits into the daily workflow and whether it will really accomplish what you want it to do. And so the biggest mistake we see is that people don’t think through it holistically, as ByrdAdatto has done over time, and they’ll try to solve for one thing. Instead, ask: What are the goals of the clinic over the next year, and how does AI fit into those goals? And what can we use AI to do?
Ryan: [23:52] If you rush into it and go, “Oh, I need a scribe tool.” Well, a scribe tool is cool, right? In other words, you take the spoken word and you turn it into… That’s helpful, but what do you want the scribe tool to do? You’re going to go faster, but how is it all going to… The question that escapes them, I guess, in a roundabout way, is, “How is this going to make more money? How is this going to get a better outcome for the patient?” And then work backwards. If they don’t do that and they look for a piecemeal thing that they can plug in, they just get frustrated. Which is why there are 487,000 EMRs. Right? Because everybody bought their freaking EMR thinking it would solve one thing. Show me one good review. As someone who still owns part of PatientNow, show me one good review. It’s like, “I freaking hate PatientNow.” “Well, how long have you been with them?” “Fourteen years.” “Oh, okay.” “You leaving?” “No, we’re never going to leave. I just hate them.” It’s like, well, do you really hate them? It’s that mindset.
Brad: [24:55] Well, I would love for you to put your magic hat on since you seem to have it always around you. We’ve got about three to four minutes left in this show, but I’d love for you to look out to the future to see where AI will be in the next five years. What is it going to be doing with medical practices or just professional services in general? Where are we going with it right now?
Brad: [25:22] What will be different with the use of AI in the next five years, do you think, in most medical practices?
Tim: [25:27] The first thing that’s going to happen will be that we have to distinguish between insurance and cash-pay, right?
Brad: [25:37] Right.
Tim: [25:37] With insurance, there is so much happening, and with larger budgets come bigger challenges, so I think that’ll be slower to adopt, whereas cash-pay clinics can be nimble and adapt. I think what you’re going to see is more, as we discussed, consistent treatment as health care providers rely more on the accuracy of the information from AI. You’ll see more diversity inside of clinics, meaning clinics that wanted to expand into some area but maybe were reluctant to do so. I think you’ll see expansion and diversification of services, right? So aesthetics into longevity, which you’re seeing now. I think the biggest nexus is that there’s going to have to be an inflection point where patients have to start getting on the same page with health care providers and AI. What I mean by that is, with accurate AI, you’re at a place where do-it-yourself medicine is going to be pretty tempting for the average consumer.
Tim: [26:53] Right? And so how health care providers, particularly cash-pay providers who aren’t solving for cancer, stay relevant is that they need to stay on top of the evolution of AI more than the consumer at home. And the wipeout will be the clinicians who say, “Oh, it’s like the lawyer. This guy walks into my office and he’s got all these printouts from ChatGPT or wherever. I’m not going to deal with that guy.” That will be a major, major detriment to their business. And then, of course, there is AI on the surgical side. The idea of a general, easy surgery, that’s going to be a robot. I think the average human hasn’t fully sat back and thought about it because they’re not in it every day, right? I’m with people in AI who are gone in terms of what they see as the future. And the biggest challenge, Brad, will be identity. People cannot get caught up in their current identities. A guy who was an accountant his whole life and now the world of accounting has changed can’t think of himself only as an accountant. The same is true of a health care provider. A health care provider’s role is going to change, right? The one thing that’ll never be replaced is that human connection. So if you’re trying to run a shop that’s just a treadmill shop, it’s going to be pretty tough, right? Because people can go get that anywhere. The McDonald’s of medicine, they can go get that anywhere.
Brad: [28:48] Yeah.
Tim: [28:49] Right? And that’ll commoditize all these prices. So I think the human connection and building tissue around that will be the last and most important piece of the puzzle.
Michael: [29:02] Perfect.
Brad: [29:02] Awesome. Tim.
Tim: [29:04] That’s what I think.
Brad: [29:05] Thank you so much for joining us again on the Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. That was awesome. We’re grateful for you.
Tim: [29:14] You guys are absolutely the best. This is freaking cool.
Brad: [29:17] We feel the same, man. So grateful to have you on. We’ll go to break, and after we come back, we’ll do a quick wrap-up. Thanks, man.
Access+: [29:27] Many business owners use legal counsel as a last resort, rather than as a proactive tool that can further their success. Why? For most, it’s the fear of unknown legal costs. ByrdAdatto’s Access+ program makes it possible for you to get the ongoing legal assistance you need, for one predictable monthly fee. That gives you unlimited phone and email access to the legal team, so you can receive feedback on legal concerns as they arise. Access+, a smarter, simpler way to access legal services. Find out more. Visit byrdadatto.com today.
Brad: [30:01] Well, welcome back to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto, with my co-host, Michael Byrd. Now, Michael, this season we have been working on AI and health care, and we had an incredibly great conversation with Tim, really from an inside and outside vendor perspective, including how AI will impact health care practices. Ultimately, we didn’t really have any time for our takeaways because we loved hearing from Tim so much that we lost track of time for the legal takeaways, which we’ve had in other episodes, so you can go listen to some of those. But don’t worry, we are back again next Wednesday when we continue down this journey of what’s going on with AI and health care as we talk about billing and coding with John Gwin.
Brad: [30:40] Thanks again for joining us today, and remember, if you liked this episode, please subscribe. Make sure to give us a five-star rating and share with your friends.
Michael: [30:51]You can also sign up for the ByrdAdatto newsletter by going to our website at byrdadatto.com.
Outro: [30:57]ByrdAdatto is providing this podcast as a public service. This podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast does not constitute legal advice, nor does it establish an attorney-client relationship. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by ByrdAdatto. The views expressed by guests are their own, and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please consult with an attorney on your legal issues.
