Why Clinics Break Invisibly: Excel, Front Desks & AI Receptionists | BOAC #45

In Episode 45 of The Business of a Clinic, Jared Aron, founder of Coherent, explores why the business side of healthcare is still so operationally fragile.Jared begins with a story from his own clinic: four separate systems, none of them speaking to each other, and a senior team member spending days every month tying everything together in Excel. From there, he explains why this is not a small-clinic problem — even sophisticated healthcare providers are still running major parts of the business through exports, spreadsheets, and manual reconciliation.The conversation then turns to the front desk. Jared reflects on the mistake many clinic owners make: assuming the front desk is a single role, when in reality it becomes 50 or 60 jobs at once. Reception, hospitality, stock checks, social media, cancellation recovery, patient follow-up, and diary management all get layered onto the same team — then owners wonder why patients slip away.Jared and Sean also discuss why “we have a system” often falls apart after a few follow-up questions, why operational gaps get worse as clinics scale from one site to many, and why durable revenue growth depends on more than simply increasing marketing spend.Later, Jared explains the thinking behind The Business of a Clinic community, why healthcare needs more space to discuss operations and commercial infrastructure, and how Coherent Engage differs from a CRM, a Mailchimp-style automation tool, or an AI receptionist.The episode closes with a discussion on AI doctors, AI receptionists, and the future of patient support. Jared’s view is clear: the goal is not to remove the human from healthcare. The goal is to remove the administrative bloat around them, so humans can spend more time doing what matters — serving patients with empathy, judgement, and continuity.