Eric deRegt has spent his career building software in places where mistakes have real consequences — first in regulated digital therapeutics, now as CTO and Co-founder of Indie Health.

So when a vendor tells a practice owner their AI is fully autonomous and never wrong, he has a word for it: unserious. The market is full of “AI-powered” pitches right now, and most of them won't survive a real conversation. Here's the test he'd run before signing anything.

“AI is not going to fix a broken process at your company.” That's Eric deRegt's starting point, and it reframes the whole vendor conversation. The question isn't whether a tool is impressive. It's whether it solves a defined problem you can measure. A four-part test gets you there.

A serious vendor offers a BAA on day one and holds agreements with their own providers. Hesitation here isn't a resourcing problem — it's a serious problem. 

Every serious vendor rents an excellent model from the same few providers or uses an open-source AI model. So “AI-powered” on a label tells you nothing; what matters is what they build around it. A thin “wrapper” adds almost nothing, while a vendor bragging about “proprietary AI models” usually overspent rebuilding an engine they could have rented. What you want is the system in between, tuned to how your practice actually works.

Ask who reviews the AI's output, how often, whether you can see it, and how fast errors get fixed. The strongest vendors run evaluations tuned to your practice and keep your team in control with guardrails and clear escalations.

Constrain the problem and attach a number. For the front desk: a new patient is worth roughly ten sessions of revenue, and a missed overflow call is lost revenue. Compare that to the usage-based cost of a voice agent and you can judge the tool before you sign.

A breakdown of what in the name of AI you should actually be paying attention to: AI-native healthcare and the human-agent workforce

“AI-native healthcare” may sound impressive, but the key takeaway is clear: AI works best with clean, connected, and usable data. Winning companies won’t just add agents to chaotic systems. They’ll redesign workflows so humans and AI can collaborate safely and effectively.

Verdict: ✅ Worth paying attention to

Most independent practices underestimate how much revenue slips through the cracks each week.

Missed calls during peak hours. Patients who hang up after being placed on hold. Referrals that never make it into the schedule.

These small breakdowns add up quickly.

We built a simple tool to help you understand what this might be costing your practice.

The Revenue Leakage Calculator takes your practice size, average patient value, and call volume, then estimates how much revenue may be lost due to front desk inefficiencies.

It takes about two minutes. No email required. Just practical data you can use to decide whether it's worth tightening up your front desk workflows.

Thanks for joining us for another edition of Practice Independence — we’ll see you next week!

PS: We bring together independent practice owners for off-the-record conversations about what's actually working. Small rooms. Real talk. Reply to this email if you’re interested in attending or hosting a dinner near you.

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