← Power Hour Optometry
Power Hour Optometry
The AI-Driven Patient Journey Every Practice Needs: Transforming Information into Outcomes
00:54:33
Loading summary
Transcript78 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to the Power Hour, Optometry's biggest and longest running show. I'm your host, Eugene Shotsman. And today we're talking about patient experience, but from a very interesting angle. My guests are Phil Alexander and Jeff From. Phil is an AI technologist. He's also got a whole bunch of experience in marketing and also background optometry. Our kind of people. He brings a very practical perspective on how better information delivered at the right time and can change outcomes. And Jeff has spent his career studying consumer behavior. He's written about consumer trends for Forbes for the last 12 years, and he's also authored five books, including Marketing to Millennials and Marketing to Gen Z. Both guys have advised a whole bunch of companies. They've also had successful exits. So this is a conversation with business leaders, but this is also a conversation about what happens when you look at the optometric patient journey through the eyes of a consumer expert and an AI strategist. Because the reality is most practices have tremendous trust built up with their patients. But the experience around the visit often has not caught up with how consumers make decisions today. So we talk about where the patient journey breaks down. We talk about why timing matters so much. We talk about what patients need before they walk through the door. And then we dream about how AI may, in the not so very distant future, help practices create a more personalized, more effective experience without replacing the doctor or turning the whole thing into a sales pitch. Before we jump in, quick reminder to subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. As always, I really do want to hear from you. Questions, feedback, guest ideas, topics you want us to cover. Just reach out@eugene shotsman.com or through the Power Hour website here to help. And now, here's my conversation with Phil and Jeff. All right, Jeff Fromm, Phil Alexander, welcome to the Power Hour. Excited to have both of you guys on the show.
- [01:48]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [01:50]
C
Yeah.
- [01:50]
A
And I think that may be the easiest way for us to start the conversation since we're going to be talking about patient experience and since we're going to be talking about it from somebody who's not necessarily in the industry every single day, I think maybe Jeff and Phil, if each of you could give just a little bit of context to the audience about your background before we get into the conversation. Jeff.
- [02:14]
B
Okay, thanks. Appreciate you. I've written at Forbes since 2014 based on five books I wrote that are business books all about consumers. And I am a former retailing consultant who has done a lot of work in specialty retailing so that's me.
- [02:35]
C
Yeah.
- [02:35]
A
And so you literally write for Forbes on a variety of topics, but it sounds like just consumer trends is, like, your big focus.
- [02:47]
B
It is, yeah.
- [02:49]
A
I'd fill your background.
- [02:51]
C
Thank you. So I have a little bit of an optical background. At one time in my career, I was head of marketing for Pro Vision, but more recently, I've been focused on AI, and I spent my career building companies around the idea that the right information delivered to the right person at the right moment changes outcomes. So in optometry, you know, that gap is enormous. So if you took a company like Esselor that has so much product knowledge and the ODs are well trained. Our ODs are well trained, but the patient who walks in on Tuesday, they know nothing. So what problem can be solved there? And that's what I think I'd love to be able to talk about today.
- [03:29]
A
Yeah. Fantastic. I love it, guys. So why don't we start in the beginning? Like, what, Jeff, maybe from your vantage point, where do you think the patient experience is most flawed in the optometric practice today?
- [03:50]
B
That's. That's a tough question. And the reason I say that is if I was starting with a blank sheet of paper, I'm not sure there's anything that would exist that exists today. I know this. It wouldn't be. I'm going to get a text telling me I have an appointment in a few days, and that's the only time I hear from you. So 364 days, a year of nothing, and then a text telling me to come in. I am so unprepared to purchase my chair. Time with the optometrist is wasted for both of us.
- [04:20]
A
And that's what happens for you and your optometrist?
- [04:23]
B
Yes.
- [04:24]
A
Yeah. Okay. Well, then you. You and I are in. In absolute agreement on that. And I've had people have heard me give similar lectures. But let's zoom in. So what else would you. And maybe like, let's talk about everything that you would put on a blank sheet of paper, and we'll kind of zoom in topic by topic of all the different things that you would want to explore as part of a good patient experience. And, Phil, I love what you were saying about the right information to the right person at the right time, changing outcomes. Let's think about information as the central flow or currency in that patient experience. So, Jeff, let's go back to you for a second. Just like, what? Oh, go ahead, Phil.
- [05:11]
C
If I can add to what you just said, though, Eugene, it's Not just about the information, it's how it's delivered. So, I mean, we've tried it all. I mean, we've tried pamphlets in the waiting room, right? You have manufacturer websites, you got videos in the exam room, but none of those are interactive. They're not personalized. They don't know that this patient likes to hunt and go fishing and works on that computer and doesn't want to switch glasses. And so all these pamphlets don't actually answer the question that this patient has. So the patient goes and can sit in the doctor's office. And we think we've educated them, we've done nothing well.
- [05:50]
A
And I think we live in an ERA now, in 2026, where you've got patient experience and really consumer experience shifting from informed to fully customized. And what I mean by that is that, you know, I think in 20, I don't know, 2007, 2008 is when information became convenient, right? The Internet gave us accessible information. The mobile phone gave us convenient, accessible information. And now today, I think, you know, you do a search on anything in any browser, you're going to end up with an AI assistant trying to customize the search results for you so that you don't have to do the work of clicking on different websites and doing certain things. And many people, at least 13 to 14% of the consumer population, is currently starting their search experience for a lot of problems they're trying to solve inside of AI agents because they recognize the value of that customized experience. So, Phil, to your point of. Is that pamphlet that's sitting on the table that's got, you know, an inch of dust on it? Is that pamphlet really customized to what I need as a patient at that exact moment? Absolutely not.
- [07:11]
B
And so I think I would not only agree with Phil, but I would add a little insult to injury. For those who are listening, who are medical doctors, there is. You're in rarefied space. There are very few brands on the planet that have more trust conferred on them than you do to start a relationship. There are a few that will bypass you after they earn it, which will take years and years and years. But day one, you have an enormous amount of brand trust, and you don't really leverage it. So when I spoke at the conference, I was really talking about the fact that this is a missed opportunity for me as a patient. It's also a missed opportunity for you as a medical doctor because I am unprepared to make a purchase decision because you haven't asked me a few questions which would to Phil's exact point allow me to get to the right solution for me. And I know they offer the right solution to my me, but why are we waiting till I'm, you know, near the end of an appointment to start that, that dialogue and that journey? And, and so that's, that's the jumping off point on the discussion.
- [08:26]
A
Yeah. So, Jeff. What? Well, when, when you say that, let's concretize that just a little bit. What would that look like? So you are, you say you're unprepared as a patient at that point. It's also, and again, I agree with you, but I, I want to hear you talk about it from your perspective rather than putting words in your so let's talk about what you would have liked to see, what you think is not present there.
- [08:53]
B
I think I would want a few questions and I would want the option to provide more or less information to that doctor prior to the visit. If it was spring, you know, sometimes I react to some spring allergies. So maybe there's like a question that's seasonal in nature, maybe not. In different parts of the US Spring happens at different points in time. So you might have to adjust the timing of that question depending on where you are. But in general, you know, there's some basic questions that I think need to get asked that allow somebody to understand where my headset is and am I buying for functionality? Am I buying only on low price? Do I care about fashion? And there are ways to ask questions where you can get to a better answer. In my talk, I used my example from a company I was a previous owner in, Three Dog Bakery. And the question we got to was, where do your dogs. Where does your dog sleep? Because we found that when someone said my dog sleeps in my bed, not when my dog sleeps in my bedroom or near me, but in my bed, that customer is predisposed to really love their dog and spend more and it allowed us to engage with that customer. So I have not been retained by Esselor or anyone else, but there's some group of questions that could be asked. You have my trust, you have my permission to ask them. And I can choose not to answer. But if I want a more customized experience, answer as many of the following questions as you would like. And then after I answer a handful of questions, you could then provide me with information and an AI tool like what Phil shared. And you could do some pre work so that when you attend that appointment, both parties have a more meaningful discussion in the chair and I leave with the exact Product I want and oftentimes I leave without making a purchase because I need more time to think about it because we didn't start the discussion till the end of the journey. And I think that was the point Phil made and I think it's exactly right.
- [11:03]
C
Yeah, I, I, I would add to that, and that is I'm using my experience. I know I'm not wearing glasses today. I probably should to tell you that I.
- [11:11]
A
There you are. Now you're wearing glasses.
- [11:12]
C
It's great, you know, that I've experienced this firsthand. But you know, the first time I went in and you know, and I was in the optical business and someone asked me if I wanted transitions, I'd been out of it for so long I wasn't sure anymore. Right. And, and I was asked after I'd seen the doc and I was sitting in the optician, the retail part of the store, and I left because I didn't know enough about whether I actually needed it. What if I had actually been able to, when I got the text that Jeff talked about or that email reminding me about my eye exam, if I included in that, it said, ask the doc about all the options you should consider based on your lifestyle. Right. And I could have put in, hey, I run, I jog, I do this, I use a computer, I use it only for watching movies. I put all that stuff in and it comes back and says, well, if you're doing indoor, outdoor, you might want to consider transitions. Here are the different lens options. Oh, it sounds like you might be a candidate for no line progressives. Now when I go into the doctor's office, the doctor's job is not to educate me. The OD's job is not to educate me, it's to confirm and make me commit and make a decision so that I actually am going to get what I need. And the average transaction, I mean that's what we are all in it for, the business transaction. The revenue is significantly higher than if I was trying to get educated by the od.
- [12:36]
A
And, and I think you're absolutely right. The lifestyle questionnaire is such a useful tool and I think that fewer than 20% of practices actually, I think it, I don't remember the exact number, but it's fewer than 10% of practices consistently adopt a lifestyle questionnaire as part of the pre appointment paperwork. But I think, you know, and when I talk about lifestyle questionnaire, just to make sure we're on the same page as what you're saying, Phil, it's the, okay, tell me about what you do on a regular basis. How much time do you spend in front of a computer? How much time do you spend outside? Do you have trouble ever driving at night? Do you have trouble doing fine, you know, to find motor hobbies or whatever? Right. And you just kind of ask people both about what they do on day to day life in their day to day lives and also ask them to raise their hand and say, here are some issues that I have with some of the things that I, that I'm doing. And I think with that in mind. Yeah, go ahead, Go ahead, Phil.
- [13:35]
C
And I think the reason they don't, that doesn't get asked is as an od, I feel like I'm trying to sell something. That's why I'm asking these questions. Right. And so I don't want to say, hey, do you do this? Well, you should consider transition. Wouldn't it be easier if that person went in and said, I jog? So here are the kinds of frames I need. I do this. So here are the lenses and they, so there's. Now they create their own advisory and set of questions that they're going to come in and ask the doc, and the doc is going to confirm the decision, not try and feel like they're selling this guy something that he doesn't know anything about.
- [14:07]
A
Well, and I think the, you know, my, my advice to people who say they don't want to sell is you're already doing it every single day, no matter what. It's just a question of are you doing it really well or are you doing it really poorly? Like whether you're talking to your kids about what time they have to be home from school or how long they have to do, how quickly they have to do their homework before watching tv or you're talking with the patient about transitions. You're selling every single day. It's just a matter of, you know, are you influencing people? And I think selling has a weird connotation because some people consider it to be, you know, negative in some way. I believe, and I firmly, I've read this multiple times, but I firmly stand behind the fact that selling is just educating someone towards a more favorable outcome towards them, that that benefits them. So you're really helping somebody, you're really creating more benefit for them, not doing anything that is wrong in doing that.
- [15:10]
C
And to your point, and to Jeff's earlier point, what if you could. I'm going to use, I'm going to use the word sell. What if you could pre sell or pre educate them so that when they come in. All you have to do now at this point is confirm that, confirm the. Or respond to the questions that they might have and confirm decisions that they have to make. Yes, so much easier.
- [15:33]
A
Now, Jeff, you talk about the power of questions and you sort of, I think you glossed over this, but I want you to elaborate on both this example and I want you to maybe talk a little bit more about the power of the right questions. Because, I mean, look, I could ask a patient, do you want to shop for glasses today? And many patients will probably say no for a variety of reasons. And maybe because they don't want to be sold to, maybe because they think they're going to buy it online, maybe because they like. That's clearly not the right question. Although that's the most obvious question to say, oh, if a patient says no, then we should probably educate them on why they should be buying glasses from us. Or not. But that's probably not the right question. So talk to me about your kind of path of discovery, both in your consulting and in your own, you know, the bakery, the pet bakery, business. Like, talk to me about the path of discovery, of finding the right question, and then also figuring out how do you distinguish the right question from the wrong question? Sure.
- [16:38]
B
There is not a linear answer to that question, even though I think it's the right question. And so the. The party that has the most to gain to getting to the right question is probably us, which means they would probably have to engage somebody, whether that's me or someone else wouldn't matter who could help them with this. Okay. But the idea is to get to the smallest set of really good questions that would allow all the stakeholders, which would be the patient primarily and the doctor, to have the most meaningful discussion, some of which is the form, as Phil alluded to, some of which is relevance, and some of which is timing. And I don't have a coefficient against each variable, but they're going to probably all matter. And so the way I think about that in my simplified thing, you know, you have a super small dog store and you're selling dog treats. If somebody's spending $5 on a dog treat, and let me be honest, I said my dog will eat the neighbor's poop if I let it. And they don't care what the dog doesn't, care what I feed it, and it can't complain if I give it a treat they don't like. And at the end of the day, you know, it's all about a consumer who's willing to pay a modest to significant price premium for a product they perceive to be better. And so I think this is similar but different. My best guess is there's an oversimplified segmentation Persona, if you will. There are people who are shopping on price, people who are shopping on fashion, and people shopping on technology. There might be crossover. If I could ask one question, understand where they fit, then that puts me in a, in a journey, right? Our absolute best customer was somebody who didn't have kids in the household. They had a high, high, high price elasticity. I would guess that may also be true for someone who's willing to spend a lot of money on premium eyewear. I mean, you could spend significant amount. And to Phil's point, I didn't even know what transitions lenses were and I bought them, but somebody had to explain it to me like, and, and that was not explained to me until way too late in the journey. And, and so this is just an industry where there's a lot of assumptions being made about what the consumer knows and there's no reason for it because there's so much trust. There is no politician in this country who probably has as much trust as their doctor. We have, we have senators in every state. They, they aspire to have as much trust as the small practitioner in the most rural setting, in the most rural city who's listening to this. It doesn't exist. So let's leverage that trust. Let's ask questions. I, I wish I could tell you I knew what they were, but I don't. I'd have to discover it. There might be a little trial and error. One way would be to test with 100 stores this question set and 100 stores that question set and see if there's a meaningful difference in performance. A better way would probably to do a little bit of consumer insight work to get to those questions. But I think what's really interesting is Phil's tool would also potentially tell us which questions we should ask because the tool would say what questions are people asking most often? So if we texted them a link to basically create their own private concierge pre appointment experience, my guess is we could harvest the data from the tool, add a small dash of pepper, which might be some qualitative insight, consumer research, and then voila. Here are the three questions that would get us way down the road. And whether it's two questions or four questions, I don't know.
- [20:27]
A
But Jeff, the point of the question is, is it for the patient to qualify themselves as a will spend, will not Spend is the point of the question for the patient to raise their hand and say, I need this kind of help versus that kind of help. Like what is the at the heart of it? When you're giving the dog baker example, it is to qualify where you should focus your time as a business. Because for you, if a patient or if a customer said, my dog sleeps in my bed, or if that was the question, where, where does your dog sleep? And you say dog sleeps in the
- [21:03]
B
bed, does your dog sleep? And the answer, highest price elasticity answer is right.
- [21:09]
A
So then you know who to qualify. Who are your, who are going to be your VIP customers and you would treat those customers different. So that would be the point of that question. If I understand that correctly, you know,
- [21:21]
B
and think this might not be the right answer question. But you know, what's the most important thing to you? Is it fashion, is it technology? Or is it getting a great price? And, and one of those could potentially lead me down a path. Now, is that the right way to ask the question? I don't know, maybe. I mean, I haven't, I haven't spent weeks and weeks and weeks observing consumers in an office the way I've observed people purchasing dog treats in my dog store for months and months and months. So it's not a fair comparison. And I'm not an equity owner in Essel or. But the idea is I think people will sort of where they want to go. And I would tell you, you know, gap matters a lot, or technology matters a lot, or I'm really looking for a very cost efficient, whatever that is. And if you treat the customer with respect, you'll probably get to the right answer for both parties because at the end of the day, if I give you something that's high fashion and that's what you wanted, you'll probably go somewhere else. And if I don't give you something that's high tech and that's what you wanted, you'll go somewhere else. And if I don't give you something that's fairly affordable and that's what you wanted, you'll probably shop somewhere else. And so at some level it's, you know, do you have a, you don't have to have an enormous assortment, but a moderately, you know, know. But where do we start?
- [22:44]
C
What.
- [22:45]
B
And you could even show three, three examples to a consumer. You know, which one of these interests you the most? Right. I don't know part of me in
- [22:53]
A
that case, what you would do. And I'm just clarifying for the audience and probably for myself too, in case I don't understand this correctly. But what I would do is I would ask a question and that question would create, and let's say I asked some version of the question, like what visual priority do you have? And the in the priority might be fashion, might be being able to see well at night, might be able to, you know, some, some version of function, or it might be cost. Right. And for each one of those, what I would do as the business owner is create a different path for the. Let's say that was the question. I would create a different customized consumer pathway for each of those consumers and I would treat them a little bit differently when they're in the office to accommodate to their preference. Is that right?
- [23:46]
B
I think the goal and the question might be as simple as, you know, given a choice between a little more affordability or a little more fashion, which one's more important to you? Or it might be, you know, are you the kind of person who's first to adopt new technology? Or you tend to be someone who likes to be, you know, see it proven out and then adopt, you know, like there are different ways that you could get there without asking. And I don't know what is the best way to ask, and I haven't
- [24:14]
C
studied it well, there may be a way to get to it without asking the question. And so the example I'm going to give you is we just launched with a automotive aftermarket client and their assumption was all the questions that would be asked of AI were things like, what's the, what are the right installation steps? So what's the torque setting for the this? But really what ended up happening was those weren't the questions people asked. They were what's the right part for this product? And if they got the right part, then they might ask the installation question. So now we've got 7,000 plus responses. And so based on that, we can say there's six categories of questions. And those six categories of questions lead to outcomes, right? So you really need to look at collecting the data and you can use that very easily in an AI environment where you give somebody a chat thing or an ask or even calls that are coming in asking questions, you analyze it and you say, okay, these are the patterns and so the patterns. And then you have to look at it and say, how do we get outcome based? So if this is the question, what's the outcome I want? Right? And that's the key. Asking the question is great, but the rest of it is how do we get to the Outcome we want because the question was asked what's the right outcome and how can we help the OD or the optician get to it.
- [25:31]
A
And it's interesting because from a, from a marketer standpoint, the previous way for us to get the answer is really maybe twofold. One of them is we could look at what do people search on Google. But if there's not too many search. If the, if the search term doesn't have that much search volume then we might that then we might not get on a good, good question. The second option would have been to split test the crap out of a landing page which is a months long exercise. And, and by the way we did this right. And so some of the things we learned was people will convert more often if they see the, if, if they haven't seen your practice in a long time, they'll convert that they'll be, you'll have a higher conversion rate if they can see a picture of the doctor, they'll have a higher conversion rate if they can see the insurance or the division plans or insurances that you accept. They will convert at a higher rate if they can see your reviews or some scroll of your reviews. And you know, you take, add some things, you take them away. You also learn that you got to have at least two different calls to action. You can't have one, you can't say book an exam because is that, you know that that's not enough. So we learned we have to have at least two calls to action. People convert higher if they have more calls to action. So these are things we learned over time with split testing. But I think your, your point is now we've got AI and I think after the break what I'd like to do is zoom in on that exact point which is now that we've got AI how can we get to the right questions faster so that we can customize the patient journey and deliver a better experience? We'll be right back in the power hour. Hey there, it's Eugene and I want to let you in on something. So you've been to conferences before. You come home fired up and then Monday morning hits and it's back to the grind. The ideas don't stick, the plan never gets made, and six months later your practice is in the same place. So I know that pain. I've been to those conferences with you and that is not happening. At this new event called I Care Boss Live, you've heard the story of I Care Boss and now there's an event I Care Boss Live. It's September 16th through 18th in Cleveland. Two and a half days. We're bringing together 200 of the best practice owners in eye care for a one of a kind event that combines speakers, peer learning, mastermind groups and industry innovation, all designed around one goal. You leave with a 90 day plan and you can actually execute it and get stuff done. And we're going to tackle some real stuff. Exam only rates revenue per patient, people problems, leadership, AI and technology, specialty growth, Ethereum, things that keep people up at night. We're going after it and we're doing it in a room full of practice owners that are just as serious about growth as you are. This is not a conference, it's not a seminar. It's something different. There are only 200 spots. So if you want to be in on this, this is not publicly announced, just on this podcast. Go to thepowerpractice.com click events, click apply now. This is invite only. It's not for everybody. So you have to apply. We'll ask you a few questions and if it's a fit, we'll invite you to register this event. I care. Boss Live is going to sell out. Do not sit on it. I invite you to apply right now. All right, we're back on the power hour. Jeff. Phil, I think we're having a good conversation about patient experience, but I wanted to zoom in on the topic of AI a little bit because I think think there is certainly an opportunity for us to explore how patient experience. I think your hypothesis or theory is that patient experience should be more custom to the individual patient and their preferences. And as we said earlier in the show, AI allows for that. So let's get practical. What do you think practices should be thinking about when it comes to enhancing the patient experience with AI? AI?
- [29:37]
C
Well, I, I, I think there's a tendency to think of AI as a technology and sure, that's one way, but really it's to use AI to get, get you the outcomes that you're looking for. Right. As Jeff mentioned in the first session, you know, the OD sees a patient once a year, 364 days a year. They don't see this patient and they're completely silent. No education, no engagement, no preparation. And guess what? Things had changed for me during that one year. I was doing, you know, glasses just for reading. And now I'm having trouble on my computer and I've taken up golf and all kinds of things have changed. If I come into the doctor's office and, you know, in that 15 minutes that's how much the OD really wants to spend with me. Maybe a half an hour if I'm lucky. And I got a great doctor, you know, but a lot of it is going in testing and he's, you know, testing your sites and he's doing, during that time that OD has to educate me, understand my preferences, learn about my lifestyle, convince me that these are the products that they need. And you know what? It just can't happen. There just isn't a way for that to happen. So what if you could use AI to close that gap? So can AI prepare the patient before they even come in in a friendly manner that cares about them, in a personalized manner. So back to the pamphlet. That's so unpersonal. You know, we're now saying, what do you do? Do you run? Well, if you run, here are some frame options for you, right? So they don't slide off your face. Here are transition options. So now you come in and you could even print out a list that AI at the doc. So let's say it's ask, ask Dr. Jones. There's a picture of Dr. Jones. It talks about insurance available, but then it says prepare for your for your next visit. And when they prepare for your next visit, AI asks them the questions that actually lead to an outcome, but makes me feel better about saying, hey doc, you know, I run in your site, it said I should consider this, this and this. And by the way, I also hunt and I fish. It also suggested this and what is the difference between the Verilux and the something else? Right? And so now they're coming in and they're asking to buy as and the doctor spends his time or her time on what's really important and not on trying to convince them or make them commit to product. So that's how AI can help. AI can help in the upfront getting the, the patient ready for the, for the exam. It's a, it's one example. Yeah.
- [32:17]
A
And I think as you think about how that works, let's just imagine what the step by step would be. So let's say that same text that Jeff complained about said something like, hey Jeff, I know your eye exam's coming up in a couple weeks. I wanted to introduce you to a new tool that we have on our website that helps you prepare for your exam. You click on that link, you go to that link, in that link, maybe it's a chat ish type of thing that asks you a few questions and hopefully then actually stores your answers so that your doctor and Your front desk and your tech and your optician don't have to ask you those same questions again, but hopefully stores that information somewhere and translates it over to your ehr. That would be the freaking dream. But in that case actually says, okay, now that you've answered these questions, here are a few recommendations that we have that you may want to talk to the doctor about. Would you like to. And so I may say we have these amazing, I don't know, I'm going to call them Shamir driver intelligence lenses for your driving at night. Do you want to learn a little bit more information about them or do you want to see a quick video about them? So I might click and see a quick video and be like, oh yeah, I actually kind of want those. Like that's, that's, you know, all of a sudden I'm no longer a price shopper, but I'm a, I'm a, I'm a premium lens shopper and I've sort of picked, I'm not going to rely on the, on the 60 second recommendation of. Just rely on the 60 second recommendation of the doctor and the short amount of time that the optician spends talking about it. But I, the patient have taken the time to learn about it. So now the, I have demand. I'm walking in and it's a demand driven sort of recommendation. I'm asking you and saying, hey, Dr. Alexander, do you have, do you have the Shamir thing that your website talked about? Because I think those lenses would be really helpful for me. And then the doctor doesn't even have to work so hard to explain them to you, but may give you some options and tell you if you're a candidate. Is that what we're talking about here?
- [34:37]
C
Yeah. As long as you're visioning, let me add a couple of things. Okay. So you did all the things that you talked about and it says, and they said, yeah, I'm interested in this. You could have it do a couple of things. You could say print it out so I can take it with me. Right. Send me an email with this info. And the doctor's office could say, send me the email of the choices of the things that they were interested in. So when you come in, the doc also knows that you talked about transitions. You looked at Baru, you looked at. What was the thing? Shamir, whatever product you looked at. Right. So that's one. So everybody's prepared for this visit now, right? That's one. So with the sheet that sprinted also could have. Hey, don't forget to ask about, you know, you might want. But we could also have a sheet, login sheet where the doc says, yeah, it's got a list of all the products for which we've got information and videos and data. Right. Because this is a private LLM, it's not going out into the Internet and pulling information that someone put on Reddit. That's incorrect. This is medically governed information. Right. But I don't carry this product. So I just check a box that says not this product. And it might have a list of the different eye exam or the medical equipment things that I have in my office. So if I even ask, do you do the following tests? You say, yeah, we use the abc, you know, equipment to do the tests. And here are the outcomes that you're going to get from it. Right. So you can, so that you can put in as much information as you want to as a practice. And so the person coming in feels very, very confident and has, and you know what they've asked about. So they're now a candidate for this lens of this frame that, you know, jobbers are interested in. Oh, they're more interested in designer frames. I asked about that. They also said, hey, can I get an eye exam that looks for, I think I got cataracts, you know, So I know now that when they come in that they are expecting me to talk about cataracts and look for, and do a test for cataracts. So it can, it can completely change the patient experience in the doctor's office using something like this.
- [36:49]
A
Well, and I think one of the things that I learned on this show from one of the top dry eye docs in the country was that the dry eye workup starts at the scheduling phone call. Right. So what he taught me was that, you know, your phone agent or the person who's talking on the phone instead of just scheduling an appointment, are also asking some leading questions like, oh, so Phil, while I'm cooling up the schedule here, have you experienced in the last 30 days, itchy, scratchy eyes or any symptoms where you wake up and your eyes are sticky at all? I might ask you some of those questions initially and then that would help me figure out what appointment type you need and how long you would spend with the patient. And maybe you would have two appointments that are immediately scheduled and one of them is your standard eye exam, and the other one might be a dry eye workup. And those are the types of things where you could very quickly make a determination based off of, like, even guide the patient journey based off of Its interaction with that particular tool.
- [38:02]
C
Absolutely. And what you said is super interesting because the power of AI is. Let's take your dry example. And the journey now becomes completely different. It knows all the related questions to ask you, to prepare you. Okay. These are things you need to know. It could be this or this. Do you have the symptom you don't want it to prescribe? I mean, I think every OD would have a, you know, say it's not your job to tell, but the AI can certainly ask it the questions that say you need to think about or ask your doctor when you go in tomorrow if this is an option for you or if this is a consideration.
- [38:42]
A
Yeah.
- [38:42]
C
You know, the final answer. But AI could say it could be one of these three things. Ask your doc.
- [38:47]
A
Yeah. And I think it's. What's great is that it kind of builds on that trust that Jeff was talking about earlier in the show, is that the doctor already has the trust, if you can believe that this tool is an extension of the doctor in some capacity. But, Jeff, I have to come back to you. You study consumer intelligence or consumer behavior. I mean, is the. Is it true that we trust AI as much as we would trust a doctor yet, or no?
- [39:16]
B
I would say as a best guess, for many consumers, they trust AI less than they trust a doctor today. That's possible that it would change at some point down the road. But today I would say they're going to trust the doctor by a good bit more than they would trust AI but they think AI could give them some meaningful information for them. Having said that, I am familiar with one young woman who works for Anthropic who has a medical condition and has access to their full suite, which is not all public. And she is loaded all. All of her medical history going back to day one, that she has access to and gotten a lot of information that no doctor has been able to provide her on a condition she has. And so, you know, it's. Is it possible in the future that that might be available? I think yes. It's not available publicly today. She's already using it as a, you know, an executive who works at Anthropic. Right. To help herself with their permission and to validate what. What they can do with the tool. So, you know, this trust thing is something that most brands always hope to achieve and rarely get. And everyone listening to this show, with very few exceptions, is starting at such a high watermark to not reimagine how AI and the ideas that Phil put forward could dramatically be Better for the patient and an educated patient is likely to be more comfortable. Making a purchase like this is a win, win, win. Let's get the flywheel right and there's nothing complicated about it. The flywheel's broken for everybody. And let's figure out how to get right. And I think that's what I was trying to share when I, when I made my remarks and I think that's where my, my endpoint would be in, in this discussion.
- [41:29]
C
Eugene, one one comment about AI, though there are a lot of questions. We've all put something into ChatGPT or Claude or something and the answer was flawed. Right. And the reason for that is it can get its answer from anywhere in the Internet or anywhere that it worked in a setting like this. It has to be what, as you know, is governed AI. So it should only reach out for, you know, information that it's been given. It's, it shouldn't make up product specs, it's not searching the Internet. You know, every answer is sourced from approved information. You know, and this matters, especially in a healthcare environment where, you know, infamy, bad information has real consequences. Right. And it's patient safe, it's not diagnosing, it's not contradicting the doctor. It always has to route the patient back to the practice and what it's going to do. And so AI can be shaped, do that. And if you shape AI to do that, then it's really the right hand of the practice.
- [42:33]
B
Yeah.
- [42:33]
A
And I think, you know, as you're saying that what seems like the most logical place to start is the practice website, because most practices have spent some time thinking about what is my website, what is the content on my website. They've read the content on their website, most of them, and at least they know that that information is going to be both medically accurate and relevant to what their practice actually does. And then you, if you just put a chat function on that website that only references the information on that website with really strong guardrails, you could hypothetically have a conversation with a tool that is trained to respond only in a way that, that, that uses the information available on that website, right, Phil?
- [43:20]
C
Yeah, absolutely. It could be the website, but you could also as say, you know, you can also make available to them manufacturer information. So it could be about equipment, it could be about frames, it could be over lenses, contact lenses, you name it. So if you got Bosch and Lomb stuff, or you got SOR stuff, you got transition stuff, we could put all that in there, you know, Kid safety lenses and all that information could be in there. And that was the checkbox I saw. If they say, I'm carrying it in this brand, and if you've got the brand information loaded, if someone says, you know, why should I choose so and so, you know, they can make a choice between two progressive lenses or not get out even before they come in. And it may be on the website, but it might be just approved information that the doctor said. I'll allow you to go get manufacturer information on this. It's on go get. It's loaded into the system. There's no go get outside the system. Yeah.
- [44:17]
B
On a separate point, Eugene, I apologize. I stepped away for a moment, which you noticed, and some of our viewers will notice. It's classic broken customer experience. My doctor's office is already confirmed, via text, an appointment with me. Now they're calling me with a robo call that I don't need or want to remind me, even though I've already given them the push one to confirm. Like, this system is so broken. When does the insanity end?
- [44:42]
C
Right?
- [44:42]
B
And I interrupted from our discussion, and I step away for that. You're wondering, why did he step away? It's like, could we make this customer experience any worse? No, it would be hard. I'd have to really work at it.
- [44:55]
A
Well, and, you know, the. I'm gonna circle back on an experience I just had with a doctor, so I can't make stuff up.
- [45:04]
B
Right.
- [45:05]
A
It's. And it's true. There. There's a lot of different things I could say about the quality of care. And I live in Cleveland, so people know I have access.
- [45:14]
C
Hey, I'm a Clevelander.
- [45:18]
A
All right, Phil, you and I, but surprised we're not doing it live. We could be in the studio together.
- [45:23]
C
I'm in, Felix, But I'm a hardcore Clevelander.
- [45:26]
A
Okay, well, very good. I'm. I am happy. Happy to hear that. We don't. Us native Clevelanders don't cross paths too much, so it's great. Interestingly enough, you know, my experience that I just had, and I think you guys would both appreciate how we could potentially extend this experience, is I had some lab work done. Just, you know, general lab work. I then had a doctor, virtually because it was more convenient for me. I don't want to come into an office. I had a. I scheduled a virtual appointment to review my lab work. That appointment lasted, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes. And the doctor, you know, went over all the. All the information. He was like, you know, like, your cholesterol isn't kind of g. Generally fine, but generally fine, but just a little bit high. So, you know, I think you should really stick to a little bit more of a Mediterranean diet at least a few times a week. And, you know, just kind of glossed over a bunch of stuff very, very quickly. And then as he was doing this, like, I understand this dude's on a schedule where, like, every 10 minutes is scheduled out. So I felt bad asking a couple more questions. But as I asked him a couple more questions about some of the other lab readings, what I did later, and I'm sure that other people do this as well as I was like, I took. I took my labs and I took a screenshot of the page that had the, you know, the things that he said he was slightly concerned about, and I uploaded it to three different AI tools. And I said, listen, my doctor was slightly concerned about this particular. That this particular reading helped me. Help me design a diet that works for me. That, you know, what, tell me what changes I should make in my diet and ask me whatever questions you need to ask me one question at a time so that, you know what my diet is, and then tell me what I should change. And I had a very customized experience, actually, surprisingly, although I expected Claude to be the best at this, ChatGPT was. Gemini was terrible at this. ChatGPT was the best at this particular exercise. But, um. But I had a really good experience doing that, but it wasn't thanks to my doctor. Right. Like, wouldn't it be great if that was a serp. If that was a service that my doctor offered me, wouldn't it be great if that was a service that my doctor started with and said, you know, I only have 10 minutes with you, but I'm also going to give you this particular thing that helps you. That helps you adapt your lifestyle and asks you a few questions about the way that you're eating now and gives you a few. Because I'm sure this doctor has to have this exact conversation, like, 50 times a week. Right.
- [48:10]
C
Well, so it's interesting you say this. I won't name names, but, you know, so I talked to this downtown trauma hospital in Cleveland. So you know exactly which one I'm talking about. And we are still in conversation with them. And they are well known for sci, spinal cord injury. And so what happens is you have an sci, and it's very serious. And I, you know, you get sent home and the family and the, you know, now the son's home, and. And there are a thousand questions What? You know, do I need special equipment for them? How do I date them? You know, you know, he's going through emotional xyz. How should we handle it as caregivers? That's family. Who's answering all these questions? Well, you know what, this downtown hospital actually has resources for all of that, including, you can come in. There are therapy groups. They happen to be the center for sci in all of Ohio. Right. But you would never know it. But what if there was a little box that said ask hospital and it said, hey, I just brought my son home and I don't know what equipment I need for the bathroom. I could look for four hours on, on their website to get the answer. Or it could answer right now. Yeah, right.
- [49:24]
A
Yeah.
- [49:24]
C
And, you know, it's similar. We went to, uh, you, if you have, if you try do this, if
- [49:30]
B
you, if you're find out about any
- [49:35]
C
kind of injury, they've got everything from A through Z and you go in and if you look up, you know, chemo treatment for, I just had chemo treatment. What should I do? I've got sores in my mouth. You know how hard it is to find the answer. So you actually end up calling your doc, but they have the answer to it on their website, you know, and it's uh's answer.
- [49:59]
A
Yeah. And, you know, that's kind of where I was taking your answer from before and extending it a little bit further into the patient experience. Because imagine a world where a patient is done with the doctor visit. They buy the stuff, they buy whatever we recommend. They get the treatment, they get. You know, and wouldn't it be great if something followed up with that patient and asked, hey, I'm an extension of the office. And I, you know, let's say they got a text and it was a couple, couple weeks later and it was, hey, Dr. Jones was really curious how your glasses are working out. And maybe that's the question, Jeff, that you know, the big question you ask of some sort. And if they say everything's perfect or you know, here, here's a few things I, I or I have some concerns. And then if they have some concerns, maybe they can chat or they have some questions. And maybe it's like, I just, I, I, what questions do you have about your glasses? Click here to, to, to chat. And you know, some of it is like, how would you rate your comfort with your glasses? And maybe the second that you rate your comfort, some of the, the tool could say, hey, come back to the office. We'll readjust the nose Pads. Or some of it could say, hey, this is, you know, they, it seems like you should be wearing different glasses when you're working in front of a computer. Based off of some of the answers that you gave me, come on back into the office. We can extend you a 50% off your next paying use case.
- [51:29]
C
That's an amazing use case. I mean, I can picture this where after, I mean, I, I, I love the use case because I, you know, I left, I don't hear again from my doctor, as you said, for three maybe.
- [51:41]
A
I think that was the jets first point in this entire, in this entire conversation is that he hasn't heard from his optometrist except for like two days before his annual eye exam.
- [51:50]
C
It's just, I think it's true in most of most of our cases.
- [51:53]
B
Yeah. And I guess I want to separate quality of care from the experience. I can, I could obviously have a medical professional, a doctor who I think is exceptional in terms of their knowledge and their ability to. But the experience might not be great. I could have one, the other, or both. Obviously the goal is both. But the other point I made, I think, you know, most of us are going to have a phygital experience. A digital experience is a digital experience and a physical experience. Most of us, not all, are going to use some form of, of search to get some information, whether it's this or any topic really these days. And so all I'm suggesting is to create a new flywheel leveraging something of the genre of what Phil proposed. It might not be exactly that, but something of that genre that allows for the trust that has been given these, you know, these independent optometrists, these independent, you know, doctors to better serve their patients in an outcome that, that everybody wins. And, and when we do that, the patients will be happier. They'll have better met their needs and at the end of the day they'll have made a purchase as well because they'll have been able to make the right purchase for them.
- [53:15]
A
Yeah, well said, Jeff. And I think that just about wraps us up for the day. Phil, any final thoughts?
- [53:22]
C
No, thank you. I think we are at an interesting point in time where AI could be extremely helpful. It could be, it's not a tool. It could be really the right hand for the od. It's not replacing the od. It's allowing the OD to do the things that they really want to do. And you know, whether they should or should not. There are elements of their jobs that they don't enjoy that actually AI could help with. And I think the patient experience as
- [53:50]
A
a result, the enhancement to the quality of care, but then also to the way to the customization of the patient experience, I think those opportunities just have not existed before. And so doing whatever we were doing for years and years and years up to now and just trying to make it a little bit more efficient with AI is not doing enough. I think it's time to challenge the norm, as Jeff was pushing us throughout this episode. So thank you both, gentlemen. Appreciate you joining me on the Power Hour. I think it's been an exciting conversation.
- [54:19]
C
Thank you.
- [54:21]
B
Appreciate you. And thank you.
- [54:23]
C
Thank you very much.