Why Every Practice will Soon Have an AI Operator

Who are Shannon Blake and Cortney Hall?

Cameron Hemphill: Welcome to Medical Millionaire, where medical aesthetics meets business growth. Hosted by Cameron Hemphill, entrepreneur, investor, and one of the industry's most respected voices. As founder of Growth99, strategic advisor to Terri Ross Consulting, and advisor to Bridgeline Medical, Cameron helps owners go beyond revenue to build real enterprise value. This podcast is for med spa owners and wellness entrepreneurs ready to think bigger, execute smarter, and build a business that actually scales. Here's your host, Cameron Hemphill.

Cameron: Hey, what's up, everybody? Cam Hemphill here, your host of the Medical Millionaire podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. My goal is to give incredible value and insight for practice owners. If you're looking to scale your practice, grow, and understand everything it takes to position yourself to truly build enterprise value, you're going to hear about it from everybody I have on these episodes. We've been producing this podcast for many years, and we've recently launched our YouTube channel. I've actually switched to YouTube for everything I watch when I tune into a podcast in the morning. So if you're interested, go check out the channel, it's just my name, Cameron Hemphill — go check it out, follow us, I'd love that.

Today we have two guests on. I love having two guests at the same time because it creates a great dialogue and a great story. Today we have Shannon Blake from Podium. You guys know who she is, we've had her on the show before — a KOL and industry impact leader, huge with AI and tech and where this whole world is going for aesthetics. And we have Cortney Hall on today too. She's out of Utah, she has an incredible practice, we've had her on the show, and she's going to talk about what Podium has done for her practice and what Podium is. I think for the most part the audience knows what this product is and what it does, but I keep hearing this theme of constant innovation — the AI operator, the EMR they have, the Avery tool. I've been at these conferences and listened to Shannon speak on stage.

And there's a lot of just AI noise out there, right? So I thought it made sense to have the person spearheading the AI charge from an EMR standpoint, from a patient-communication standpoint, on the show — and then why not have a user on too, somebody using the product inside an aesthetics practice. So Shannon, Cortney, thank you so much, welcome to the show.

Shannon Blake: Thank you for having us, Cam.

Cameron: We're just talking offline, you guys are in Utah, my home state, I miss it. I know it's hot as hell out there, I'm in Florida recording and it's hot here too, coming off the 4th of July. So, thanks so much for joining, I want to jump right in if that's okay.

Shannon: Let's do it.

Cameron: I want to know, Shannon — this is really for you to set the stage — I want to get the meat out of this episode, because there's a tremendous amount of noise around AI and what Podium is doing. So first off, broad strokes, what is Podium, who are you, where is HQ, and what do you guys solve for aesthetics practices?

What is Podium's all-in-one platform?

Shannon: Yeah, so high level, we're headquartered out of Utah, that's where I am today, Podium headquarters. We've been a software company supporting local businesses since 2014. About three years ago — we're coming up on three years, which is wild — we made a big bet and decided we're going all in on aesthetics. It's a very fast-growing, fascinating industry, there's a lot of very real problems and a lot of money to be made, but only if you have very modern tech. We did some research on the industry and realized practices really aren't supported by modern tech and software, and we thought, we know how to build good tech, we can solve problems like speed to lead. And then AI, of course — how can we leverage AI to build AI employees that help practices convert leads faster?

But the biggest move we made was about a year ago, when we launched our AI operating system. So now, to put it simply, Podium is an EMR, we are a CRM, we are your text and email marketing, we're your phones where you're texting. It's an all-in-one solution — everything your EMR has, memberships, charts, forms, scheduling, inventory management, all of that, mixed with lead management and all of your client communication, in one place.

Cameron: Amazing. You guys have really scaled this from a feature standpoint rapidly, and I think you've done a great job.

Shannon: Thank you. We've listened to the audience, the practice owner — you shoot all the way down to the patient level and understand the pain points.

How does Podium cut through the AI noise in aesthetics?

Cameron: I think, to build on that, there's a lot of noise in the space. There's a widget, a gadget, a tool, a cloud, a chat GPT, a Gemini — it's kind of funny, every tech company now claims "AI this" or "our new advanced AI feature." It's confusing, but we all know AI solves a huge need, there's a big demand, and it solves a tremendous amount of client-experience issues in aesthetics. So talk to us about how you think about cutting through that noise and helping practices figure out what actually adds value.

Shannon: Yeah, definitely, you nailed it, Cam. Every single tech company that supports aesthetics is claiming to be an AI company at this point. We showed up to the Medical Spa Show this last April, 2026, so excited to unveil the AI operating system we'd just finished building, and we get there and there are other EMRs also claiming to be an AI operating system. But the reality is there's AI that's cool but not actually valuable, not actually making you money. Our focus at Podium has been, what are the biggest issues in aesthetics? A saturated market was one — a lot of competition on every corner. How can we use AI to convert leads fast by building an AI employee that sounds like your best employee, replies to every single lead 24-7, 365 days a year, and actually books that appointment onto your calendar? That's real value.

What is Podium Operator?

Shannon: In addition — and we'll be talking about this quite a bit — we've built an AI assistant we call Podium Operator today. We're toying around with other names we haven't landed on, so for this conversation we'll just say Podium Operator. We felt there was a really important missing piece: in many cases these aesthetic practices are run by NPs who, with all due respect, don't necessarily know how to run a business, know the KPIs, or understand the business side of things. So we thought, now that Podium is the EMR, the CRM, the phones, the texting, and we have an AI employee up front named Avery who engages with clients — what if we built an AI assistant on the back end, so owners who don't know what reports to pull or how to read the numbers or identify if revenue's down could have an assistant they can talk to and ask anything about their business? This AI operator could give them insights into their practice they may not know how to get or even know to look for. It's an AI assistant on the front end and the back end, both built to make you money, which is the goal.

Cameron: I love that. And it saves time.

Shannon: And saves time, yeah, lots. If I look back at Podium's first features — reviews, text communication, phones, the lead management tool — the whole intent was to create the EMR, the operating system, and then advance that into the Operator feature.

Cameron: Was that because of something that really hit home for me, which is booking the appointment? Look, I've been in this space for over a decade, probably too long, but still having so much fun — it's a fragmented market, and I think you're trying to solve that, where you have multiple pieces of tech trying to run a practice. It's almost like the front-facing part hits a wall when it comes to communicating with the actual patient-of-record appointment. Was that why you advanced your value proposition and strengthened the overall platform?

Shannon: Cam, yes, you actually nailed it. We had Avery out in the market, and the feedback from our clients was, okay, this is great, she's responding to leads, she's answering questions, but when it came to booking the appointment, all Avery could do was send the scheduling link from the practice's EMR, because they generally have a link they can send out. The feedback was, I need Avery to do more, I need her to actually book the appointment where no human has to touch it. So that was one of the reasons we made the hard decision to build the entire EMR ourselves — she was limited in her superpowers without being the scheduler, and we couldn't, as Podium, go get all the integrations we needed with every commonly used EMR. We ran into walls there, so we said, we know how to build good tech, let's just go build the whole thing ourselves.

And as soon as we started building that — I don't know how many of you know about Claude, for example, there are some really cool things you can do with Anthropic's Claude, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT — we thought, wait a minute, now if we're the entire system, and we have insight into every client, every lead, every treatment history, every service they'd shown interest in that nobody booked an appointment for, every detail — I'm talking everything — we could create a really powerful assistant on the back end that helps these practices make more money, get better insights about their practice, and make strategic decisions, all while having a front-end employee you can deploy to execute on the strategy Operator just gave you. I know Cortney's going to share some examples too, but yes, that was the impetus for creating the EMR, and then once we had every detail about every lead and client, we could build something really powerful for our clients.

How did Cortney's practice adopt Avery and the EMR?

Cameron: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and it's making me think about the end-user experience. Cortney, I know you've been using this product for quite some time, I follow you on social media, you're a raving fan, you and I have had conversations about it for, I don't know, over a year. Shannon, if I'm hearing you right, you already had text communication and phones, so it made sense to have two-way texting with the Avery AI component, but you were hitting a roadblock with booking — you could send a link, but that went to a third-party app. Once you built your own app, they can see Sally booked an appointment for Botox on Tuesday at nine, here are the charts, here are the details, and she can self-book through Avery. Cortney, walk me through the experience from when you started using Avery to now using the EMR and Operator, because you've seen features unlock along the way and I'd look at you as a power user.

Cortney Hall: Yeah, I think I started when it was just the leads, and then they added phones, so I've really been along for every unveiling they've come up with. It's been so exciting, because before that I was being clever and doing things manually — I could future-schedule a text message to get the lead. Then, fast forward, when a lead came in, like Shannon said, it would send a booking link. What I found in our practice is once we actually took that away, and we weren't asking the client to do anything — we were asking the client to click a link and book — but when you have a continuous flow, like you and I are text messaging and Avery just says, "great, I have an appointment open Tuesday at 2:30 with Candice for your Botox, does that work?" and I just naturally say, "yes, that's great," and then Avery is prompted to get the information she needs, like, "can I grab your email to finish your profile, I'll get that set up and send you the paperwork to fill out." It was a continuous flow. That first month alone, we saw a 7% increase in conversions, and I think it's because we didn't ask the client to do anything — it was just a very natural flow.

Are Avery and Operator two different AI agents?

Cameron: Okay, is Avery and Operator two different AI agents? Both amazing, we'll say that right now — so there's two, you're not renaming Avery to Operator, there's actually two?

Shannon: Yep, exactly. Avery is my front — front of house, client-facing, per se. She's handling all the day-to-day text messaging, the bookings, everything that's client-facing. Operator — which I've put into my phone, because I can actually text Operator — is my best friend, she's bestie in my phone too, so I'll just text her, and now I literally have an assistant 24-7.

Cortney: And when this launched — I'll say, before we even kick off everything it can do, and we won't get through everything because Operator is constantly evolving — I remember texting Shannon and saying I actually feel like I have a partner in this. I feel like, for the first time, we're really going to scale and move the needle because of having the data so in front of me all the time. So I'm excited to jump into specific examples, because this is a disruptor. When you think EMR, the first thing I typically hear people ask, whether you're an operator, an injector, or an owner, is "but how's the reporting?" It's still a useful question, but we don't even know what Operator can do, because it's a disruptor — we don't even know the right questions to ask yet. EMR and reports is EMR and reports. Operator, because everything's in one system, you have it at your fingertips — how useful all this data can be in a matter of seconds, with follow-through. It takes so much time to get data and reports, and then more time to actually do something about it. Operator is really helping solve that problem.

What reports and insights can Operator generate?

Shannon: Yeah, Cam, and if somebody says, I don't even know what questions to ask, what should I be looking at in my practice, you can literally ask Operator that question, and it'll tell you some data points you should be aware of, maybe on a weekly or daily basis.

Cortney: Okay, great — can you share with me what mine are for last week, for last month? It is truly your best friend and AI assistant that can tell you anything about your practice you want to know. Do you want to know why your revenue is down 10% month over month? Ask Operator — it'll share insights around different providers, their utilization rate, their re-booking rate. There's no detail it doesn't know now that this assistant lives inside Podium's AI operating system, and it puts it in a beautiful PDF or PowerPoint, however you want it, and creates a visual for you to see.

Cameron: So you can text it, say, "I want to know exactly what my blended utilization rate is," or "break it down per provider," revenue per hour, utilization rate, whatever KPIs you want to track, and it will create a PDF report and send it to you?

Cortney: Well, easy — that's like one. Another one I use monthly, and I actually have this automated, you can schedule it to hit the first of every month. It creates all of my one-on-ones for the month, for the prior month, and highlights things per provider that I couldn't have my eyes on all the time. One thing I thought was so cool: it put together all the KPIs — utilization, revenue, all of that — and one really cool thing, it flagged that Laurie, one of our estheticians, had reached out to a client who'd cancelled and got her rescheduled. It showed me the text message she sent, and noted the client rescheduled because Laurie reached out. That's an excellent team member, a great performer, and it let me highlight that in her one-on-one. Laurie kept taking pictures of it, she was like, this is so cool, I wouldn't have seen that. It was such a deposit in her one-on-one — "we see you," along with, "you also got three Google reviews, here's what they said." It pulled all of that.

Cameron: It's a highlight reel for that provider, is what you're saying.

Cortney: Absolutely, yep.

Why does Cortney call Operator her "bestie"?

Cameron: Interesting. You made another comment, that Operator is saved in your phone as your bestie — literally a logged contact?

Cortney: Yeah, I can just text it, pull up my bestie. The biggest "aha" was when I first got access to it, I was at a stoplight and thought, what's our re-booking rate, who didn't reschedule? And within seconds Operator pulled it up: this is who didn't reschedule, would you like me to draft a follow-up message to get them rescheduled? I said yes, and it literally all went out while I was at the stoplight — everyone got a text: "hi, this is True Medical Spa, would you like to..." That would have taken me forever if I'd even gotten to it.

Cameron: Well, and the thing is, you're driving, you're always thinking about the business, the way you'd think about a business partner — and there's just so much communication that takes place. So maybe that's why you logged her as bestie — she's a partner, you text her and she just gets it done, there's no back-and-forth of "I'll wait till I get to the practice," "did you want that sent today or tomorrow" — it just does it. Is that what I'm hearing?

Cortney: Yes, absolutely. And people text me randomly on my personal phone to get scheduled for an appointment, and I'll just take the message, open my phone, talk to my bestie Operator, and say, "can you schedule so-and-so an appointment for Tuesday at 2:30 with Candace for Botox?" And then you're done.

How do Avery and Operator work together?

Cameron: Shannon, does Avery talk to Operator? I mean, they have to, I'd assume, but are they having conversations you can monitor or review? I haven't seen AI agents talk to each other like that yet.

Shannon: Yeah, so Operator is giving you all the detail Cortney described — the data insights, the recommendations to the owner — and she'll draft up a message. But at the point when it's time to actually send out the text and engage with clients or leads, that's when Operator passes it over to Avery, and Avery is the brains on that side. Avery has all the context — information about treatments, new-member discounts, cancellation rates — she's the one with all the information about treatments, services, and practice details that she communicates to leads and clients.

Cortney: And for the team, one thing that goes out daily for me is a message to every provider during their actual scheduled shift. If you're working today, this morning you get a text that breaks down your entire day — who's on your books, but also areas to enhance the appointment, an upsell or upgrade based on what they haven't had. "She's coming in for Botox but has never had filler, talk to her about filler. She's not a member, mention memberships. Make sure you rebook her." It gives them a whole game plan, so it's always in front of them every day. We still do huddles and communicate with the team, obviously, but that's information they're getting before they even come into work, so they're prepared — it's their daily digest. It's just a text that looks like it came from me, but Operator was the brains behind it.

Cameron: And it basically builds them a roadmap for the day so they can succeed, all while you're drinking coffee at home. Isn't that beautiful?

Cortney: I see it through Instagram, you're always doing something, always having fun.

Cameron: Well, I love that. I think it's extremely efficient, and for the audience, think about the manual effort this would take pre-Operator, pre-Avery — the time, the information lost in translation through texts and email, when people just don't get the job done. Do you have an estimate of how much time this is saving you at the practice level? It has to be a tremendous amount, and it probably builds culture and morale too.

Cortney: Yeah, and it's not only time, it's that things are actually getting done. I can't tell you how many times I knew I needed to pull a report or get information together for my one-on-ones, but you're pulled in a million different directions every day. I've used my time a lot more efficiently because this is just done.

Shannon: Yeah, Cam, the clients I've spoken to who are using Podium Operator, I hear time savings across the board — eight hours a week, ten hours a week. But what I hear more often than anything is, "I wasn't even doing these things." So it's not just time savings, it's work that wasn't getting done at all, that now allows them to increase revenue and figure out where the gaps are — stuff you just don't do because you don't have time.

Cameron: You don't have time. I can build on that too, because I've worked with practices for years and gotten more intimate with a few of them through Terri Ross Consulting. In the past fifteen months, I've gotten my hands inside practices from an operator standpoint, and I've come to the full conclusion that a robust medical aesthetics and wellness practice needs to have an operator inside their practice. Because you can have a provider-owned practice that's always seeing patients — ten, twenty, fifteen a day, whatever it is, that's a demanding day — and another provider who's also a high producer, you want to keep them happy and keep compensation right, and they're focused on making money and delivering patient results. By the end of the day, we have families, we have kids, we want to go home — that's a long day. So I've had this reality hit me, that every practice does need an operator, somebody to actually work the business every single day, find inefficiencies, evaluate tech, evaluate gaps, figure out what KPIs to track and what compensation model to build. And what I'm hearing is there's a way you can inject Operator, your tool, directly into a practice, and it becomes the operator. Actually, now that we're having this dialogue, the name is growing on me, I love it — it's got my approval. It makes sense, because you're able to find inefficiencies and give a playbook, a roadmap, a weekly dialogue, a monthly download.

Why does every practice need an operator, and can it benchmark KPIs?

Cameron: But I guess, to build on that — providers really struggle with what to ask. "Cool, we have a list of reports and dashboards inside the EMR" — but what am I really looking at? Am I pulling it just to pay commissions? Why am I looking at it, what does it mean, how do I know what to ask? So is there any limitation on reports or numbers inside Podium, or is it just…

Shannon: Not that I've found so far. People ask things like, "why was my revenue down last week," "show me Botox clients who haven't been in for the last 90 days," "which of my providers are underperforming, and why." Maybe you need Operator to upload something to inventory because you can't figure out how in the EMR. That's the other thing — a lot of practices maybe have a better EMR than they think, but don't know how to use it, because it's complex and confusing and software isn't their background. With Operator, you can ask where anything is in Podium's AI operating system, how to do anything, or help set up an automation — you don't have to figure out how to navigate the platform, it tells you exactly where to go and what to do.

Cameron: Does it also give you a "why" behind what it tells you to look for, and maybe how to fix it — some kind of benchmarking or training mechanism? Say I have three providers in Utah, and I want all of them above $1,000 an hour on revenue per hour, and utilization above 80% — can it peg against a benchmark or goal? Is that baked in, or on the roadmap?

Cortney: Do you need me to answer that? I'm going to say yes, because I've played with similar things. Think of it like a partner asking you questions — it's a conversation you're having with it, but it has all the data, and it'll say, based on this data, here's what I see as missing, here's where I'd focus — it even recommended getting out into the community and teaming up with people locally for certain things. It really helps me go, okay, that's actually a good idea based on what we're trending. So if you ask that specific question, it'll dive into the data and see what's missing — say you have a provider who only did two fillers against fifty Botox appointments, that's a revenue-per-hour gap, because if she did more filler, her revenue per hour and utilization would both be higher. It really does work with you like that.

Cameron: It's pretty mind-blowing. I think the real question to ask Podium is, "show me what it can do," because I kept asking the wrong question — does it have this report, that report — because I had a fixed mindset from fifteen years of asking the same type of thing in this industry. Now it's, that's the wrong question, it's "show me what it can do."

Shannon: There's nothing like it on the market, so people just don't understand its full capability. Cam, that's what's so special about Operator — it's not just data insights, it pulls the data and then gives recommendations. It's your partner in strategy, you guys are in it together, it gives suggestions, and if you don't like one you can ask it to think of another idea. And if it ever involves communicating with a client to increase bookings, that's where Operator partners with Avery, and they'll schedule and send those text messages within seconds. So it's not just data insights, it's execution and follow-through.

How does Operator automate marketing to dead leads?

Cameron: That's a great point. Say you're spending 10% of your revenue on marketing — ads, say you're a million-dollar practice, that's a big check you're writing every month to Meta, Facebook, whatever — and you're not converting every lead. My question is, I'm assuming the answer is yes, but could you take all the leads you didn't book and say, "Operator, for all the leads we didn't book in June, create a text, fire them out, maybe put a nice little discount on it," and it fulfills that, down to execution?

Cortney: Exactly, and the great thing is Avery was already working those leads for us in the first place. The second a lead comes in, Avery is client-facing, so she's already texting within five minutes, we do a follow-up the next day and the following day, plus a phone call — probably four or five touch points. So if those go dead, that's where Operator takes over: it pulls the leads that came in, and not only that — you'd be surprised how many spam leads we get — it filters through and flags, "this one was spam, we're not going to text them." That's why you're my best friend in my phone.

Shannon: There are so many ideas here, too. When Podium got into text marketing, we created tags, which was a very manual process — you'd tag a lead or client as interested in BBL, Moxie, whatever — so when you sent a bulk text marketing campaign, you could send it strategically to the folks who'd shown interest. The problem is that requires a lot of manual work, and it doesn't always happen because your front desk isn't always on top of tagging every single lead. But with Operator, you can literally say, "I want to do a special on BBL Moxie, pull me a list of anyone we've had a conversation about BBL Moxie with who never booked," or people who booked but only got one session done, and then craft the message you want to send out. You no longer need those manual processes. With Operator, it can sift through every text conversation, phone conversation — we've even got AI charting now, so it has conversation information from the consultation itself. There's nothing Operator doesn't have insight into, so it can execute from a marketing perspective too.

How does AI charting work for providers?

Cameron: I want to talk about charting, because that's a big one. I'm not a provider, I have a ton of respect for the artistry providers bring and everything they do for patients, but I always hear charting can be painful — a provider with back-to-back appointments is either rushing through it or waiting until the end of the day to do it all at once. How does the charting flow, and does it make it seamless? Is it listening to you, or…

Shannon: Yeah, there are options. You can have our AI charting turned on, where it's part of the consent form that the consultation or appointment is going to be recorded, so you have permission — you want people to know it's being recorded if you're going to use it. Then it just listens and fills out the form, all the little bits of information, for you. Some providers aren't comfortable with that yet and prefer to do it manually, and that's fine too, but we try to make that flow as seamless as possible either way — a little clip-on microphone, pushed directly in, is what I'd do as a provider, because charting at the end of the day is tedious work I wouldn't want to do later. You can hit record right from your phone — I think the mobile version is coming soon — and it filters straight into a chart.

Cortney: I get to see everything — if a provider doesn't have MD sign-off, or hasn't finished a chart, all of that is right in my face all the time now, so we're pretty buckled down on everything being finished and signed off by the end of the day. And I think "EMR" as a term — people always ask what EMR you use, and we're trying to find the best EMR — but I think EMR is just a data thing now. I just want somewhere to hold my data, book an appointment, chart, that's fine. I need it because I need Operator.

Why is EMR migration faster now?

Cortney: Operator is my new gold standard, EMR is whatever. I've used a ton of them, and migrating — everyone groans, "oh, the migration" — it's not fun moving from one EMR to a slightly different technology, into yet another EMR, where maybe one has a feature you like better than the one you're on. But migrating to get all my data at my fingertips and have a business partner, I was like, once I heard what was coming, let's go. The quicker I got my data over and Operator launched, the sooner I could start doing these reports — that was the game changer for me.

Shannon: Yeah, Cam, our entire purpose with the AI operating system is to make you money. We say EMR because people understand what that means — scheduling, charting, forms, memberships — but we've tried to stay away from that term, because like Cortney said, that's just data storage. An AI operating system makes you money — everything we build helps make you more money, more competitive, convert leads faster, and gives you longevity and health in your practice.

Cameron: It's a good point — migrating EMRs is the last thing anyone wants to do, especially for people who migrate and then in three months realize they made the wrong decision. I've seen that become a real culture pain point — when do you have time to bring the charts over? It sounds like you guys have worked tirelessly to make that seamless, is that right?

Shannon: Yeah, I'll be honest, we launched our AI operating system in January, and we were quite humbled in the migration process. We had aspirations — our CEO wanted 48-hour migrations — and usually with EMRs, people are used to months. Today we're at 45 days worst case, 30 days best case. We still want to get to 48 hours leveraging AI, and we've had some big breakthroughs using Operator's technology to help migrate data from the old EMR into our AI operating system, which has sped things up and improved accuracy tremendously. So for anyone who tried to migrate from January through April this year, my sincerest apologies — we've come a long way and we're in a much better place now.

Cameron: I remember you saying that, and I thought, I love the ambition, I don't know how you're going to do it, but it's a good point — if you can get Operator to hook into the current EMR, extract the data, and build the rails to pull it all over, you have the engineers and talent to get it done.

What's coming next: labs, treatment plans, and compliance

Cameron: As we go through this, is there anything we're missing? It seems like Operator can do everything — e-commerce, wellness is moving in big time too.

Shannon: It's coming. We already have e-prescribe, and lab integrations are coming. The one I'm most excited about is good-faith-exam integration — I think that's going to be a really great one for staying compliant. I actually saw it pop up internally and texted one of our engineers, "wait, how did you see that already" — it had just gone up. That's on the wellness side, as far as prescribing, and there's more coming.

Cortney: Before Shannon takes the next question, I'll just say — anything I've ever asked "what about this," they've built it, and built it even better and faster. Podium moves so fast, if I don't see something one week, the next week there's an email that something new is launching. It just keeps getting smarter, and they're not stopping. I'm here for it.

Shannon: Cam, people might wonder why every EMR doesn't just leverage AI and build faster — we hear all the time that practices put in a feature request and wait a year or two and still might not get it. One thing, it doesn't hurt that we have money — we've raised $450 million — and we have the resources, about 250 engineers at Podium. But what's a bigger differentiator is that for 14 years, Podium was a luxury add-on, something a practice thought was nice to have but could cancel to save money if it got expensive. So Podium has always operated with a customer-obsessed mindset — listening to customers, offering real customer success where you can talk to somebody, text them, schedule a meeting, put in a feature recommendation and actually see it built. We've always had to work hard to keep every customer, because we weren't an absolute must-have. So I think that's the big difference — we still operate like we have to win the business every year or they'll cancel, and now we honestly can't think of a single practice that shouldn't move over to Podium. There's nothing another EMR can do that we can't.

And we're just going to keep growing — we want Operator to be able to monitor your inventory and go place orders for you, so a human doesn't need to do that either. We want to get to a place where there is no task considered "a task" that a human has to do, so everyone in the practice can focus on human connection, building relationships, and keeping clients coming back because they feel like part of your family and trust you.

Cameron: That's amazing — you're building something the industry is desperate for, warehousing all the data under one roof. To build on the wellness conversation, every practice I talk to — I come from legacy aesthetics, as I've started calling it, meaning traditional Botox, filler, sculpting, all the techniques that have come full force — but this new wellness and peptide, GLP space is very attractive, it's all over the internet, there were big FDA events in July, category-two drugs moving to category one, available from different pharmacies. That creates a whole other friction point. I know aesthetics practices running two EMRs, because one was built for legacy aesthetics but doesn't have adequate memberships or a portal to order from the pharmacy and store prescription data alongside the chart, while booking the appointment on the other side. Everybody wants to get on the revenue train and deliver a great patient result, but it creates this huge tech issue. Cortney, I'm not sure how much wellness you do at your practice, but if somebody wants labs drawn, they have to go somewhere to get labs drawn — how do you bring that into the EMR, create a membership profile around access to care, let them order prescriptions, add a treatment protocol that reminds them their prescription is getting low? It's the first time I've seen science almost outpacing the tech, and the tech scrambling to keep up. The only way to solve it, I think, is with AI.

Shannon: Wellness is top of mind for us right now, that's where the growth is in aesthetics. Like Cortney mentioned, lab integrations are coming in August — we were actually supposed to launch a month ago, ran into a small road bump and switched providers, but it's coming. And you mentioned treatment plans, Cam — this is where huge revenue growth happens, but here's the thing: you put somebody on a treatment plan, who's managing it? Who's following up to make sure they're actually executing on it over the year? That's where Operator comes in — Podium builds the treatment plans, and Operator has access to them. You tell Operator, "follow up with anyone not booked for their next appointment that's part of a treatment plan, 60 days before it's supposed to happen." Ideally people rebook at checkout, but sometimes that slips through the cracks — maybe they have to check with a spouse on a new time — and Operator manages all of that. Treatment plans should be live end of August, beginning of September, and once that's built into the AI operating system, Operator will execute in partnership with Avery, the AI employee that communicates directly with the patient. Even before that launches, if someone checks out after getting pelleted for hormones, Operator already knows to follow up on what to do after, and checks back in on how they're feeling — a cadence I've set up in Operator that it's already running.

Cameron: Can you templatize that — say, build a treatment plan for a particular service, or a 12-month plan for certain conditions, and pick that template, or does it get smart enough to know, based on all the prompts you've put in, what you want to happen, so it just does the job for you?

Shannon: The thing I like about Operator today is that it's very collaborative — I don't think anyone wants to send Operator off with no interaction and have it go rogue. I love that it always asks, "what do you think about this, do you want me to do this, I've drafted this, do you want any edits?" It's interactive, so you feel safe — it's still AI, so you want to spot-check it, but that's what's cool about Operator, it's your partner, not something going out and doing things on its own.

Cameron: In August you'll be able to put a personalized treatment plan together through Podium on the aesthetic side?

Shannon: Doesn't matter which side. And you brought up something important, Cam — with certain PHI information, having a portal where people can log in and check results and private information matters. We're building an app and a portal so your clients can sign in and get that information — we don't have that today, so that's another component on the wellness side we need to build. There's so much compliance on the wellness side I've learned about in just the past three months.

How does Podium keep practices compliant?

Cameron: I had a guest on recently who went through the whole Quad-A experience — have you heard of Quad-A? It's a compliance accreditation that's been around since the eighties, mostly in plastic surgery. I actually had their CEO on yesterday, the episode comes out tomorrow, and I agree with his thesis — I think we're maturing as an industry, and compliance is going to be very important. I think it also helps your enterprise value, how you differentiate in the future, what credentials you have beyond just being a provider or a practice. There's a lot of value in what AI and Operator can do around the portal and making charting simple and keeping everything consolidated — I think it only helps you become more compliant. People are afraid of AI going rogue, like you said, but I think in reality it should make you more compliant, because it's more accurate and more consistent.

Shannon: What's nice about Podium is we have a full side of the business focused just on aesthetics, so it's our job to understand all the legal compliance guidelines and keep our practices safe. We've had to be on top of that since the beginning, because texting for a business involves TCPA regulations and 10DLC registration if you're bulk text-marketing. Because aesthetics is a core focus for our company, we stay ahead of all of that, make sure our tech supports it, and keep our clients safe and compliant.

Cameron: Amazing, you guys have been in that game a long time, I don't think anybody understands it more than you. I've really enjoyed this conversation, it's incredible what you're building — I want to have you back on, I feel like there's more coming. I think you launched e-prescribe and it's live now, right?

Shannon: That is available, it's live, yes.

Cameron: All right, cool, so now you can order scripts right inside your operating system, old EMR, new operating system, straight from Operator. Maybe eventually she'll order the scripts herself — who knows, she could become the provider. But if AI can do it, who knows what we'll be doing in the future. Super powerful conversation, you guys are doing incredible things for the community and industry. At the end of the day the patient wins, and the practice and provider are a by-product of that win, which builds on the entire value proposition of where we're trying to strengthen the industry. Thank you so much for coming on, Shannon, it's always a pleasure, Cortney, always a pleasure. I think you guys have a custom link if people want to tune in or get a demo — I'll put it in the show notes and on YouTube, and I think there's a little token of appreciation too.

Shannon: Yeah, absolutely.

How can practices connect with Shannon and Cortney?

Shannon: And Cam, I'm going to tell everyone to grab their phone — I want to give out my cell number, you can literally text me "demo" and I'll help coordinate that for you. I always do this on podcasts, and I love hearing from people, so this isn't a false offer, please take me up on it. My number is [phone number removed]. Even if you just have questions about the platform and don't want a demo yet, feel free to text or call me.

I'm a text girl, but call me if you prefer that. Thanks again for having us on, Cam, for always staying ahead of the trends in the industry and bringing on relevant guests to add value to your community.

Cameron: Absolutely, thank you for that. Cortney, if people want to connect with you from a provider, owner, or COO standpoint, where's the best place to reach out?

Cortney: I have a lot of people reach out on Instagram, so you can always DM me — the handle is thebrokenstiletto.

Cameron: Guys, go follow her, check her out, she's got great content and a thriving practice. Shannon, thank you so much for sharing that — go text her "demo." And you guys go check out the platform, it doesn't hurt to look under the hood, you might as well. I think AI is going to be where we all want to be in the future, and if you're not taking the time to learn, invest, and understand it, my sense is you'll be falling behind. I'll leave it there, guys — until next time, happy injecting.

Thanks for listening to Medical Millionaire. Built for operators, founders, and leaders in medical aesthetics who want to grow with intention, increase profitability, and create real enterprise value. If this episode helped you, subscribe on YouTube, follow Cameron Hemphill on Instagram, and share it with a colleague who needs to hear it. For more insights and resources, visit CameronHemphill.com. Until next time, keep building your practice like a business.