Automate This, Not That: How Smart Clinics Avoid Digital Chaos
Everyone loves the idea of automation—it feels like the future.
But when clinics try to automate real workflows, it’s like opening a closet and having everything fall on your head.
The trick isn’t just to automate—it’s to automate the right thing.
And that means solving a real problem at the right point in your business.
Do that, and everything gets easier. Don’t—and you’ll waste time, money, and momentum.
The Automation Temptation
Automation looks like a silver bullet—especially when it comes wrapped in slick marketing.
“Save 10 hours a week.”
“Streamline your front office.”
“Automate your patient follow-ups in minutes.”
Sounds great, right?
Why This Hype Works on Smart People
Sales and marketing are built to trigger emotions. That’s the playbook:
Make you feel urgency. Then sell you relief.
And while that’s fine in theory, in practice?
It’s overused and reckless. Think thirst traps, clickbait, doomscrolling.
Automation pitches follow the same formula:
- Expose a pain point (burned-out staff, missed follow-ups, paperwork overload)
- Offer a magic fix (“Just connect these tools and it runs itself.”)
Ask yourself—how many times has that actually worked?
Right. Almost never.
The problem isn’t that automation is bad—it’s that it’s sold like it’s effortless.
It’s not. But once you accept that, you can approach it with the right mindset.
Humility prepares you for the real work: building something solid that saves time, reduces stress, and makes your practice better.
Vanity Automations vs. Real Impact
There’s a massive difference between automating patient birthday texts…
…and automating your intake-to-billing pipeline.
- One feels good.
- The other is good—because it frees up hours, cuts down on errors, and removes a bottleneck.
Don’t chase dopamine. Chase impact.
👉 Not sure where to start? This guide breaks down how smart clinics move past digital hacks and build real systems that work.
Find Your Bottleneck, Not Your Busywork
This is where most practices go wrong.
They automate what’s easy—not what’s critical.
The secret? Use the Theory of Constraints.
Figure out what’s slowing everything else down, and fix that.
That’s where automation delivers massive ROI.
How to Pick the Right Process
Here’s your filter.
1. It’s Well Understood
If the process is full of edge cases, undocumented steps, or tribal knowledge—skip it.
If you can’t sketch it on a whiteboard in 5 minutes, it’s not ready.
2. It’s Simple to Scope
Start with workflows that touch only a few systems.
Don’t begin your automation journey with six APIs and three departments in the mix.
3. It’s Critical Path
Pick something that:
- Must get done for the business to function
- Wastes leadership time
- Soaks up hours across the team
- Blocks growth or delays revenue
4. It’s Been Manually Tested
If it’s a brand-new process, don’t automate it yet.
Run it manually. Supplement with AI chat tools.
Prove it works—then bake it into a system.
5. It’s Low-Friction to Integrate
Here’s what most people miss: your software might fight back.
Many tools don’t want you to get your data out.
They use closed APIs and poor export options to keep you “sticky.”
That’s bad for business. You want open systems.
- Look for tools with open APIs, webhooks, and documented integrations
- If you’ve got the team, open source gives you full control
- Otherwise, pick vendors that respect interoperability
- [Read: How to Choose Systems That Don’t Suck (Coming Soon)]
A Quick Example
You’re considering two automations:
- Automating post-visit surveys
- Automating insurance verification
One’s a “nice-to-have.”
The other is a bottleneck that chews up hours and delays care.
Start with the bottleneck.
When Automation Breaks Things
Bad automation creates more problems than it solves.
It usually starts like this:
- A few zaps here, a custom script there
- One or two tools duct-taped together
- Then a weird edge case breaks something—and no one knows why
Now your team doesn’t trust the system, patients get dropped, and you’re more stressed than before.
HIPAA Red Flag: Drag-and-Drop Automation Tools
This one’s critical.
Most drag-and-drop automation platforms are NOT HIPAA compliant.
That includes:
- Zapier
- Make.com
- Airtable Automations
- Many AI-based no-code tools
Even if these systems don’t store patient data, they’re still transmitting it.
And if they don’t sign a BAA, you’re at risk.
Always ask:
- Is this tool HIPAA compliant?
- Does it sign BAAs?
- Does it encrypt PHI in transit?
If the answer is no—don’t automate PHI with it. Period.
The Hard Truth About Doing It Right
Even simple automations will take dozens of hours to build properly.
The complex ones? Multiply that by 10.
And that’s okay.
Because once they’re in place, they don’t need to be rebuilt. They’ll need maintenance and tweaks, sure—but not a ground-up redo.
And they unlock your team from the kind of work they hate:
- Repetitive
- Error-prone
- Energy-draining
Now imagine this:
Each team member working in their zone of genius.
Doing work they’re good at and the business needs.
Not drowning in details, but focused on service and results.
That’s what proper automation unlocks.
Freedom. Flow. And better outcomes.
Automate the Bottleneck, Not the Bling
Automation is not about doing everything faster.
It’s about doing the right thing better.
Map your workflows.
Find the constraint.
Start there.
And when it’s done right?
You’ll never want to go back.
