This week’s Touch Point is an encore. We’re replaying TP342, “When Does ‘Patient Access’ Actually Begin?” The original aired in 2023. The question it asked still belongs at the top of every digital strategy meeting. The answer has gotten harder.
Reed Smith is in the middle of a six-part LinkedIn series called “AI and Access in Healthcare.” The latest installment, “The Front Door,” makes the claim that frames why we’re surfacing this episode again. First contact in healthcare is moving off your property. The first ninety seconds of a patient interaction used to happen on your phone line or your homepage. Now it happens in ChatGPT, in Perplexity, in browser agents that summarized your provider directory before the patient ever clicked through, in intake bots that read your scheduling page so the patient didn’t have to.
TP342 argued that patient access doesn’t begin when someone calls for an appointment. It begins much earlier, in the digital layer, before the patient is sure they need care. That premise held. What changed is who owns the layer. Three years ago, the digital layer was something a health system could design, instrument and measure. Today, the patient’s first contact happens in a synthesis interface no health system controls.
They revisit TP342 solo this week with a brief intro that connects Reed’s “AI and Access” thesis to the original argument, an honest update on where the premise held, and a frame for listening back with three years of new context.
In this encore conversation, Chris and Reed cover:
- Why patient access doesn’t begin at the appointment, and what the real starting point actually is
- How digital is reshaping the front door of the health system
- Why “scheduling” is the wrong first metric for an access strategy
- Where the original argument still holds, and where the synthesis layer changes the picture
If access begins in a layer you don’t own, then every digital investment downstream of it is downstream of someone else’s interface.
Mentions from the Show:
- Original episode: TP342, When Does “Patient Access” Actually Begin? https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp342-when-does-patient-access-actually-begin/
- Reed Smith, “AI and Access in Healthcare” LinkedIn series: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedtsmith/recent-activity/all/
- TP471, Developing a “Route-First” Access Strategy: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp471-developing-a-route-first-access-strategy/
- TP473, When Demand Outruns Supply: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp473-when-demand-outruns-supply/
- TP476, Good Enough for People Is Not Good Enough for Machines: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp476-good-enough-for-people-is-not-good-enough-for-machines/
- Reed Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedtsmith/
- Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/
- Chris Boyer website: http://www.christopherboyer.com/
- Chris Boyer on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social
Reed Smith on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/reedsmith.bsky.social
