AI is changing the way medical aesthetic practices operate, but many providers are unsure about how to adopt it. In this episode, Randy Torban, Vice President of Patient Acquisition at EntityMed, explains how AI can enhance patient engagement, streamline workflows, and improve lead capture without replacing the human element. Tune in to learn practical strategies for leveraging AI tools, protecting patient privacy, and building strong processes to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry.
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: [00:00:00] Welcome to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. Legal issues simplified through real client stories and real-world experiences, creating simplicity in 3, 2, 1.
Brad: Welcome back to another episode of Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto, with my co-host, Michael Byrd.
Michael: As business attorneys for health care practices, we meet a lot of interesting people and learn their amazing stories. This season’s theme is: Asking for a Friend. We’ll tackle questions that practices are sometimes afraid to ask.
Brad: Now, audience members, as you probably know, this is a safe place, and everyone knows that’s not you asking the question, but only if you use the magical words, I’m asking for a friend. Now, Michael, I’m super excited to bring on our guest for today’s show. We’ve had a cocktail or two or three with him over the years, so it’s going to be kind of fun.
Michael: Me too. But first, Brad, I have a asking for a friend question for you. I have a friend named Miguel…
Brad: [00:01:00] Random name…got it.
Michael: Recently experienced something that is a blast from the past for us older people. It seems that Miguel was recently the victim of a ding-dong ditch. What should Miguel do about it?
Brad: If Miguel is anything like you, he clearly deserved it, first. Second, seriously, I’m surprised some youths took the initiative to put down their phones and do a ding-dong ditch. What did Miguel do about this?
Michael: Miguel’s experience was much softer than the old-school ding-dong ditch days that I remember from my youth. I mean, excuse me, that Miguel remembers from his youth. So, a random late morning on a Sunday, the doorbell rings, dogs go absolutely bonkers because no one ever comes to our door except sometimes the Amazon delivery person. [00:02:00] And by “our” I’m speaking for Miguel. And Miguel goes down and there’s nobody there. And so I’m like, I wonder if it’s a ding-dong ditch, but I walk upstairs and Stephanie, Miguel’s wife, is looking out the window and sees about three to four, probably second to third grade-ish age girls hiding behind the neighbor’s car, who you know and has been on the podcast before, with their cameras videoing ready to capture whoever opens the door and walks outside. I did not go out far enough for that to happen. 10 minutes later, the doorbell rings again, and this time there is a note on the mat [00:03:00] that is in crayon and drawn out announcing that we’ve been ding-dong ditched. And also left their phone number to call in case they wanted to be reached out to. Don’t ask me why. So not quite the same edge that I remember from the day. But nevertheless, this is the ding-dong ditch that Miguel experienced.
Brad: Couple of takeaways here, Michael, real quick before we bring on our guest. It’s weird, one, that Miguel’s wife is named Stephanie, which is the exact same name as your wife. And stranger that you have oddly a ton of details about the actual incident here.
Michael: You are missing the point Brad, what should Miguel have done?
Randy: Fellas, I have to chime in. Just remember, regardless of what you should have done, I think Miguel should be thankful that there wasn’t a little bag of flaming dog poop to stomp out on a Sunday morning because that would’ve put an entirely different spin on this. So I think Miguel should [00:04:00] be grateful for such a cute prank as opposed to what Billy Madison would’ve done.
Michael: Audience, we normally don’t let our guests chime in, but he has the same maturity level as Brad and it’s welcome – and clearly the same thing that I was thinking about at that time. But should I have called the number Brad, or should I have just ignored it?
Brad: Not knowing Miguel very well – but since this is a made up person, I would assume Miguel would’ve run out the house and yelled at the damn kids to get off his lawn or something like that.
Michael: Yeah. I guess you’re implying – Miguel’s old.
Brad: What did Miguel do though?
Michael: Yeah, I guess you’re saying that. Well, Miguel ignored it because Miguel may have read the same article that I read recently and decided not to engage.
Brad: Right. This is starting to get boring. What article?
Michael: According to this article out of Houston, Ding-dong ditching is actually making a comeback. [00:05:00] Unfortunately, while the kids may be a little softer, it’s a different time. A homeowner in Houston has been charged with murder after shooting a teenager that had ding-dong ditched his house. The homeowner shot this young man in the back as he was running away. Scary stuff.
Brad: That just took a really dark turn there and pretty fast. I mean, even our guest, we were kind of having fun.
Randy: Only in Texas.
Brad: And this is kind of killing my childhood. I mean, Brett’s childhood memories of ding-dong ditching.
Michael: You never would’ve done that.
Brad: No, I wouldn’t have. Brett would’ve. He was a bad child.
Michael: Okay.
Brad: Let’s bring on our guests.
Michael: Let’s bring him on. I mean, we’ve already heard him, so we may as well get him in here. Joining us today is our friend Randy Torban. He is the Vice President of Patient Acquisition at Entity Med, previously senior practice analyst for Symplast, 19 plus years in executive sales and marketing and business development, frequent lecturer at medical conferences, and may be known to get into mischief with Brad and I.
[00:06:00] He is an undergrad at Elon University, and first-time guest on our podcast.
Randy, thank you for joining us.
Randy: Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Brad: Well, Randy, we’re going to hit you right away with a very important question. One, did you ever partake in the ding-dong ditch? And two, are you familiar with this comeback it’s making here?
Randy: I just want to confirm that I grew up in the Philadelphia and South Jersey area, so ding-dong ditch, and even the invention of holidays, like mischief night or something that was in our DNA from early on I did not know it was making a comeback, but as the father of an 11 and a 13-year-old, it seems like I now need to keep my eye on certain things. So, thank you, Miguel, wherever you are for bringing this to our attention.
Michael: You’re on notice but keep your gun in the safe.
Randy: [00:07:00] I do live in South Florida. We do have some similar rules here, so that’s a good thing to note.
Michael: Okay. Well, let’s jump into it. love to give a little bit of intro but love for the audience to hear about you and your background. Just introduce yourself.
Randy: Sure. Again, I’m Randy Torban. I’m the Vice President of Patient Acquisition at Entity Med. We’re an AI facial simulator company, and my background is in sales leadership in technology firms. I’ve done that since graduating, so it’s been 19, almost 20 years next year. I discovered early on that I really enjoyed, dare I say, have a passion for helping small retailers’ kind of streamline their operations and scale using technology. So, it wasn’t just making a sale or selling technology, but it was truly helping people make better decisions and grow their revenue. I was doing that alongside a familiar [00:08:00] name to some of you out there, Isaac Mosley. So, he and I worked in the retail point of sales side of things, and it was he who led me into aesthetic health care becoming a partner at Atlas KPI, where we designed KPI dashboards for plastic surgeons and aesthetic practices.
Our first client was Dr. Renato Saltz. Soon after we signed, another client the name of Terry Ross, who was still working, managing Alaska Lasers, and it was just wonderful to continue seeing kind of a validation of our dashboards by seeing the growth of these practices. And we had the good fortune being acquired by Symplast DHR, where again, I led the team of practice analysts. We focused on hundreds of practices helping them with better growth strategies, communication strategies, improved patient workflows to improve the patient journey, [00:09:00] and of course bringing with us that good data efficacy and helping them make better data-driven decisions. But I’m a little cynical and I came to realize that in our space, there’s a lot of EHRs, there’s a lot of practice management tools, and nobody was perfect, but everybody was chasing the same thing – how to maximize the patient journey. Nobody was really focusing on what I call the pre-patient journey. And that’s where so much opportunity gets lost.
When people do not understand how great that they can look and feel, they remain in the area of being afraid of these services. You’re never going to even get them through the door to then be able to knock their socks off with a great flow and great service and showing them all their outcomes. So, when Symplast integrated with this clever tool Entity Med, I fell in love with it. It’s a realistic personalized simulation [00:10:00] where patients and potential patients can do a simulation of themselves from the comfort, from the security of their own home. It’s not just a, a visualization tool. It’s not just a filter like on Instagram.
I mean, this is just like chat. It’s an algorithm and it’s designed to focus on these anchor points on a face. And again, to be able to provide patients with that wow moment was amazing. But to be able to recognize that this was a lead magnet, this is what everybody in the industry was clamoring for, this was the future. And I was happy to come on board and kind of lead the charge, introducing this to the market as just an amazing sales engine and being able to kind of personalize that journey from the very first interaction. And so, I’ve thoroughly fallen in love with AI, as you’ve said. I’ve transitioned from speaking about patient journey to AI-focused improvements to that, that pre-patient journey at conferences. And I’m thrilled to be here [00:11:00] today to talk more about the intersection of AI and the human connection and how it’s reshaping our industry.
Michael: Let me just pause really fast and let Brad know. AI means artificial intelligence.
Brad: Oh, okay. I didn’t know if it was one of those Philadelphia football teams or baseball teams, so I wasn’t keeping up with it, but thank you though. And I guess the other question is with Entity Med and the ability to utilize it, could it make Michael look more like Tom Cruise? Is the AI still hasn’t figured that part out yet?
Randy: Well, that would be a different kind of AI. I would say that that is not realistic, nor would my providers say that was a doable result, but as you can tell, I’m jealous of any head of hair. So, keep it as is my friend.
Michael: Fair. All right. So, you’ve heard us you know, our theme this season is Asking For a Friend. So, kind of in the spirit of you know open letter. I’ve got this question posed for you. [00:12:00] So, a panicked aesthetic plastic surgeon reached out to us worried that his practice was going to be left behind with AI. He barely knows what AI means, much less how it could affect a plastic surgery practice. So, I’m asking for a friend – for him. Can AI help him in his medical practice?
Randy: I would say absolutely. There should be no question. And this friend is not alone. I think everybody is asking this because so many know AI is a buzzword, right? It’s almost like there’s something mysterious behind it. It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s not smoke and mirrors. It’s here, right? There’s nothing to be panicked about. I mean, you’re using Siri, right? Many people are using ChatGPT, although everybody should pay that $20 a month and go for the upgraded version and save all the stuff they’re working on. But I mean, what is artificial intelligence? What is AI? It is a [00:13:00] way that we can analyze information, we can learn from that information, we can make predictions, we can make plans, we can create strategies around what we’re looking at, right? So, from our perspective, how is AI not being utilized in all practices today? Well, maybe we find that it is, and people just don’t realize it, right? So, think about the different ways that medical practice and med spa are approaching their patients today, right? Yes. When it comes to lead capture and conversion, AI is available, right? Yes, my AI facial simulator is the most amazing thing. It is the tip of the spear. It’s going to engage and capture patients. But I think at this point, so many people in our industry are familiar with the CRM (customer relationship management) tool. I’ll send that out for you, Brad.
Brad: Thank you. I thought it was another Philadelphia team, honestly.
Randy: Oh, no, no. And that I think everybody [00:14:00] is familiar with because they understand lead nurturing. I have information now I need to put, send it out to them. What gets missed a lot is, a CRM can be beautiful. It’s, it’s an incredibly powerful engine. If you don’t have fuel, if you don’t have gas to put in there it, it’s just not going to run. And that’s why my Entity Med facial simulator is going to work so well with CRMs. But I want to focus on CRMs for a second because that’s a particularly interesting topic in our industry. There’s a company called Go High Level, or High Level. Are either of you familiar with that name?
Michael: I’m not. Tell me more.
Randy: That is, it’s A CRM. It’s incredibly powerful CRM. You can configure that so that depending upon what a lead comes in for, and a lead says, I’m interested in a breast augmentation versus filler, versus a chemical peel versus weight loss. Now there can be a series of email and text messages sent to that [00:15:00] person to make sure that they are nurtured, and we can continue to try to get them to book. Okay, great, great the tool costs about 300 bucks a month, but somebody’s got to build it out. Well, it’s such a powerful tool, guys, I think at this point, 10 other software companies in our industry have now white labeled that same tool under their brand. You sign up for a marketing company today and they say, we’ve got a CRM, there’s a 90% chance it’s going to be a white labeled version of High Level.
You sign up for an EHR today in our industry, there’s a 90% chance, maybe 95% chance that their CRM is a white labeled version of go High Level. Might cost you three times as much. Now, of course it comes built out. Right? You don’t have to come out with those templates. But again, that is how powerful A CRM is. Not only a CRM, but an AI driven CRM that all of these companies that have developed their own software are now piggybacking off of this for a CRM in order [00:16:00] to tailor all of that information and all of that messaging specific to a patient. Not, let’s throw it all up against a wall and hope something sticks. But we can take that sniper approach using the right CRM, that again, has AI built in. You just need to know, I need to connect messaging about breast augmentation, somebody who said about breast augmentation. Does that seem overly complex at a high level? Just thinking this is what they’re interested in, this should be the 10 emails and text messages I send them. Anything weird you guys out about that?
Michael: Even the two of us can follow that bouncing ball. I think I got it.
Randy: Alright. So, let’s take a step further. The patient is booked, they’re there. Well, now we have workflow optimization. Well, what does that mean? Well, there are EHRs that you can just talk, and they will give you an AI summary, right? It’s no different if you’ve gone to a Zoom meeting and you see maybe Otter AI or this AI tool that [00:17:00] can capture a meeting and give you the summary. I think every Sunday when I’m watching football, I’m inundated with all of these business tools to help me manage the meetings that I’m not really paying attention to. Now, practitioners can do that, and they can get a lot of time back. I don’t know any practitioner who doesn’t want to make it on home on time for dinner because they want to do charting for the next hour unless they really don’t want to make it home on time. And that’s a horse of a different color.
Brad: That’s for the family lawyers that we’ll have on later.
Randy: That’s a great, great point. But even something like that, it, it’s already in existence in your EHR. Just call your EHR company, see how you can get that. I was introduced the other day to an RCM tool, revenue cycle management, for those practices that are still doing insurance. The company, the Octas Groups, literally has an AI module to improve coding, right? To limit the issues to speed that along. I mean, can you imagine how many hours [00:18:00] are, I won’t say wasted, how many hours are spent in a practice following up with people, charting, and then if you have to do any type of insurance, managing the billing, the time and the resources you need that now an AI tool can be trained to do that for you and pick up the majority of that workload. I mean, is that not the future, or am I just thinking too technologically advanced?
Michael: That’s sounds incredible. I’m curious too, like and this is maybe revealing our level of understanding of AI, but when you talk about these tools that are out there, are they generative AI where they’re doing the learning and getting better? Or is it just an advanced version of kind of the automation that people might have experienced with a traditional CRM?
Randy: That is a great, great question. [00:19:00]
Brad: No, it’s not, it’s an okay question.
Randy: No, Brad, it is a great question because I don’t think that people recognize the difference. And I think you just said it in a very, very clear way. Generative AI, true AI is the learning thinking computer, right? For those of you old enough to remember the original and good Terminator movies in the franchise, it’s Skynet, right? We in AI, are literally building Skynet, and that’s, by the way, whenever I do anything on ChatGPT, I still say thank you because I’m being nice to the machines. But in actuality, it’s a bit of both. There are AI tools that allow you to improve your understanding of data to then create, let’s say, outreach campaigns. So, for that, that’s not generative AI. That’s me using AI to, let’s say, do some data modeling. If we can get 20% of our customer base to buy another product, [00:20:00] what am I looking at in terms of revenue expansion? If I can shave this much off my cost of goods sold, what can I forecast? Can I do this 12 months in a row? To me, that’s not generative. That’s using AI to model, to then make some decisions.
To your point, generative AI is learning. It is getting better. Now, I can tell you, Entity Med is generative AI. Every scan that it does, it’s learning more and more. Same with something like Chat; it’s a growing algorithm. So, there’s going to be a combination of both. I would like to see, and a good example of this would be if we’re using AI in, let’s say for clinical notes, right? Those out there that have used any type of voice dictation, know that there is some voice dictation that can pick up clinical terminology. There’s some that has not been trained, it does not have that in its database. From a generative AI perspective, [00:21:00] that is going to be the power to make sure that it can pick up all the nuances of what a physician or what a nurse practitioner or an MA or a PA is saying, and then to properly document it and provide it in a summary with those potential outcomes. So, I don’t know the answer to that question. I think that would actually be a good follow up for any of these EHR companies to talk through how their modules work.
Brad: Well, you have all these great positive reasons to implement it, but what are some of the challenges or pushbacks that you’re getting from these practices when it comes to incorporating AI into their practice?
Randy: Sure. And it’s also a great question because the biggest challenge isn’t technology, it’s the people and the processes behind it. It’s almost what I was saying about CRMs, you can go out and get Go High Level, and you can save yourself six, seven, $800 from what a marketing or an EHR company would charge you, but you have to build [00:22:00] out all those processes yourself, right? If you’re not good enough to do that, if you don’t know how to do that, if you don’t have the resources, again, you’ve got this great tool, but you’re not going to utilize it. You’re not going to implement it. There has to be a human element, and that is the biggest challenge today, right? I will say to people, Entity Med will literally capture 50 leads that will spoon-feed you their areas of interest. That’s money waiting to happen.
Your average invoice for a new patient’s, $500, I’m going to send you 50 leads, do the math. There is money on the table. But then I find out, well, who calls them back? Oh, right. I have to do something with those leads. I’ve got to create that nurturing campaign. I still have to pick up the phone in addition to the automation that’s taking place. And people give it the old college try, guys, and that’s part of the problem. There are so many people in [00:23:00] aesthetics today who don’t realize they’re in a sales role. They don’t want to hear that. They don’t want to believe it. It’s true. I mean, think about it this way. When people reach out to me for AI, right? Any interest, okay? I will say that I have to chase people about 10 times to get them to book if they haven’t booked immediately with me.
I call them, I text them, I DM them, right? I will do everything. And then only 50% of today’s providers will show up to demos. Now, again, I’m not complaining. I’m saying we’re all human. We all have other stuff to do. I’m a person, I see this clever tool at night, I book a demo with Randy, do I tell my practice manager? Do I put it on the schedule? No. I get booked over. Patients come first. But these are the same people who might get 50 leads and wait 24 hours to call leads back. You think that somebody remembers you? You think they haven’t talked to three of your competitors by then? There are people who might try to, [00:24:00] or three times and say, well, I don’t want to annoy somebody. Well, they reached out to you. You’re not annoying if it’s the right message. Maybe you shouldn’t call them every day at one o’clock and wonder why they don’t pick up their phone. Maybe you should try them at 10. Maybe you should try them at four. Maybe you don’t have that methodology to post enough to Instagram, and you think posting once a week is fine. Maybe you post at 10:00 AM and you don’t realize your market comes online and starts looking at their feed until four, and you’ve provided them stale content.
All of these things need to kind of be, you know taught to many of these practices. These are good business, good sales processes. So as long as a med spa, a plastic surgeon has the resources, has the drive, has the determination that says, I’m going to follow up with this opportunity. I’m going to add that human element. That’s really the biggest hurdle because AI can only be as smart as the information it’s given. [00:25:00] And if there’s no organization, there’s no data management, I don’t know whether I should be focused on Google Ads or Instagram, and I’m not measuring, how do you expect AI to do this when you haven’t given it the parameters? If you’re not taking it seriously, AI won’t take it seriously, if that makes sense.
Michael: Totally. I mean, AI can’t fix a broken system that you have, and yet it’s more of a supplement to a well built out sales system that the practice has, if I’m saying it back.
Randy: Well said.
Brad: This goes back – we’ve talked about with different guests throughout this year about the difference between sales and marketing and understanding how to have the team in place is. Great point, Randy, on that too.
Michael: So final question. We got about a minute left.
Brad: Speed round.
Michael: Speed round. Where do you see AI tools for medical practice being five years from now?
Randy: I think, listen, five years, AI is going to be so deeply integrated in practices. [00:26:00] Like, we won’t think about it as AI. It’s just going to be like, this is how we work. And I think that that’s evident. I mean, go back five years from now what 10% of the market had a “Book Now” button or a self-scheduling tool. Now, I can’t imagine working with an aesthetic practice, especially even for a plastic surgeon who doesn’t do that for their med spa, that has become the way of life, right? Nobody had a chat bot. So many people have chat bots, right? Everybody was focused on web forms and phone calls, and now again, we’re sending texts. We’ve got tools like Podium and Weave to send those outbound messages for us. So honestly, guys, I don’t really think that there’s going to be any different.
I think that just like five years ago, people expected to see a before and after gallery of successes of the practice. Now patients are focused on themselves. They want to make it about themselves. They’re Googling, how will I look with Botox? What would I look like with a nose job? How would I look 50 pounds lighter? [00:27:00] So we need to recognize that AI is going to shape this industry more by really focusing on the patient. They are the hero of the heroine of their story. The practice is the Sherpa getting them up and down the mountain. So, if AI can augment that, not replace that, but augment that, that is really where the future is going to be. And the practices that do that now will be miles ahead. Practices who haven’t, will feel like they’re constantly playing catch up. But again, I think that most practices that are getting into it now will look back in five years and say, “Honestly, how did I do this without AI? Wow. I was working so much harder.”
Michael: That’s amazing. And as we wrap up, I think our friend Amy Anderson will be very proud that we all behaved ourselves today.
Brad: Yeah. She told us we had to behave.
Michael: It was very impressive, so congrats to both of you.
Randy: Both of us.
Michael: Thank you for joining us, Randy, on the Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. [00:28:00] We are grateful for our friendship and for your time today. And it’s going to be super helpful. We’ll go to break and when we come back, Brad and I will do a quick legal wrap up.
Randy: Thanks, fellas.
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Brad: Welcome back to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto, still here with my co-host, Michael Byrd. And as we talked about earlier, Michael, this season, our theme is Asking for A Friend. We had an amazing conversation with our good friend, Randy, just really [00:29:00] understanding AI from a better perspective, and then how it’s being utilized in health care. And I think Randy brought up a lot of great ways in which it can be utilized, but I think an important takeaway for our audiences to understand, ultimately, AI is a tool to help you. But remember, as a physician or nurse practitioner, PA, you still have to be making these medical decisions. If AI recommends something, you have to be either agree or not agree, but you’re the one that has the ultimate decision, including with the coding. Is this the proper code? Did you do all the things that it’s recommending that you do? So just understand it from that perspective. I know you had one more takeaway.
Michael: Yeah. I mean, as you’re incorporating an AI tool into your practice, remember that patient privacy, HIPAA still has to be protected. So, when you’re looking at the technology and potentially its use of patient health information, you want to make sure that you’re meeting the requirements for those laws.
Brad: Well, guess what? Audience members, we’re back next Wednesday [00:30:00] when we continue asking for a friend. When in studio, we have John Wheeler here to discuss with us. Does partnering with a private equity-backed platform help my practice? Thanks again for joining us today, and remember if you like this episode, please subscribe. Make sure to give us a five-star rating and share with your friends.
Michael: You can also sign up for the ByrdAdatto newsletter by going to our website at byrdadatto.com.
Outro: 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. [00:31:00]
