Every week, another vendor shows up promising a new AI product that will revolutionize your practice. Smarter scheduling. Automated billing. Documentation and coding handled at the click of a button.
You’ve heard the pitches. You’ve sat through the demos. You may have already signed the contracts.
How is this different from before? How many products have you already bought that were supposed to fix these problems, and yet they still persist? In some cases not only did they not solve the problem, or improve costs, they’ve actually gotten worse, and your costs have risen.
Because here’s the truth: automation doesn’t magically fix broken processes. If anything it amplifies them.
There is no question that AI holds the promise of revolutionizing healthcare. However AI, like automation, needs to be applied to well-optimized processes; it is not a substitute for bad processes.
Automating Chaos Is Still Chaos
Healthcare doesn’t suffer from a lack of technology. You already have EHRs, scheduling systems, revenue cycle platforms, CRMs, patient engagement and a dozen other “solutions.”
If pain points remain, layering AI on top won’t solve them. It just means:
- Mistakes get made faster.
- Frustration multiplies.
- More products means more integrations and interfaces, bringing more opportunity for more finger-pointing among all the vendors.
- Costs rise under the illusion of “innovation”.
Speed without proper direction isn’t progress, it’s recklessness. It’s like putting a Ferrari engine on a Model T.
A Cautionary Tale: Salesforce’s AI Layoffs
This isn’t a healthcare problem alone, it’s a management problem. And nowhere is that clearer than at Salesforce, whose AI strategies have come under scrutiny recently.
In 2025, CEO Marc Benioff announced that Salesforce had cut 4,000 support jobs shrinking the team from 9,000 to 5,000 and replaced much of the work with its AI system, Agentforce.. He proudly pointed to AI handling 1.5 million customer conversations, saying it reduced the need for “heads.”
Here’s what really happened:
- Loss of expertise. Institutional knowledge and judgment walked out the door. AI can’t replicate context.
- Broken trust. Months earlier, Benioff had insisted AI would augment people, not replace them. That credibility is gone.
- Market skepticism. Despite strong earnings, Salesforce’s revenue forecast dropped and shares slid. Investors weren’t buying the story.
The result? Salesforce became the case study in what happens when leaders reach for automation instead of fixing what’s broken. They didn’t solve inefficiencies. They amplified them.
Why Healthcare Should Pay Attention
If Salesforce with its money, talent, and tech pedigree can get this wrong, what happens when a physician practice bets on AI to fix scheduling, billing, or documentation without fixing workflows first?
- Automating a broken intake process makes errors multiply.
- Automating revenue cycle gaps accelerates denials and may make it even harder to “follow the money”..
- Automating provider and staff workflows without alignment fuels frustration and burnout.
The stakes in healthcare are even higher than in tech customer service. Here, the cost isn’t just lost revenue or market trust. It’s physician time. Staff morale. Patient care.
Optimize Before You Automate
Executives already know this, deep down. The problem usually isn’t the technology. The problem is misaligned team goals, unclear processes, and dysfunction that no algorithm can clean up.
Yet vendors keep selling magic dust. Leaders keep buying it. And everyone acts shocked when the “solution” doesn’t solve the problem.
The uncomfortable truth: if your house is out of order, AI won’t straighten it up. It will just make the mess permanent.
AI is not a cure for dysfunction. It’s an amplifier. After you’ve optimized your processes, automation can be transformative through better scale and improved efficiency. If you haven’t, it just makes the eros happen faster, cause more damage, and become harder to undo.
Salesforce is a cautionary tale. Don’t make the same mistake in healthcare.
Optimize before you automate or you’ll pay more to make your problems even more permanent…and happen faster… and probably at higher cost.
