How Top Surgeon, Dr. Philip Miller, Built a Chatbot To Transform The Booming Aesthetics Industry

The interaction between patient and physician should be one that stems from empathy and care. While clinical settings aren’t always the most empathetic of environments, renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Phillip Miller has advanced technology in a way that eliminates the daily noise and busywork that often prevents this from happening. 

Dr. Miller has been trailblazing the aesthetics industry for over 20 years as a facial cosmetic surgeon, author, speaker, NYU Professor and founder of PlacerTech. However, his latest venture into the world of tech startups has taken him one step further as an innovator with the creation of a new medical communication tool, Aestheti.bot.

How It All Started 

Armed with endless amounts of data and resources from decades of working in the aesthetics industry, Dr. Miller recognized that the field of medical communication could use some improvement. In the same way that technology has benefited doctors and kept them on the cutting edge of surgery and medicine, Dr. Miller recognized that a similar forward-thinking approach could be used to better the communication between the aesthetic practice and patient. 

“There’s no reason patients have to wait for someone to get back in touch with them. A chatbot is the best means to help patients get the answers they need immediately,” Dr. Miller explained. “The aesthetics industry tends to be at the forefront of tech innovation and improving and enhancing the patient experience. The general medical community may not be thinking about it at this point, but the aesthetics industry is. That’s why we built Aestheti.bot.”

The Role of a Chatbot in Healthcare

According to Dr. Miller, 90% of the questions his staff fields on a daily basis are FAQs. Meaning that aesthetic practices outside of his own are likely facing the same problem and asking themselves the same question. What is a quick and efficient alternative method of communication that’s going to deliver the same information to the patient as a real-life human would? 

The role of a chatbot can vary from collecting patient information to answering basic questions. With Aestheti.bot, Dr. Miller views it as a lead generator as well, where people can schedule their own appointments. “This frees up our staff from having to do it themselves,” he said. 

To further put things into perspective, imagine a practice receives around six bookings a week. If it takes approximately 20 minutes to book each consultation by phone, that’s three hours per week the staff spends on scheduling. This is an appropriate situation where Aestheti.bot could step in to free up the staff’s time by solely handling the booking of these new client consultations.

What Sets Aestheti.bot Apart

Aestheti.bot separates itself from the pack with a deep knowledge base and years of annotated data—thanks to Dr. Miller’s expertise in the aesthetics industry. It’s depth, complexity and utility surpasses competing platforms with tens of thousands of pre-trained answers and the ability to recognize return users. In addition, Aestheti.bot can be customized according to an aesthetic practice’s name, location, hours and physician background. It can also reflect that practices workflow, medication instructions and tone of voice.

Where Empathy Meets Efficiency

When it came to choosing which natural language understanding platform to use, Dr. Miller turned to Google to create a healthcare API system that also maintained HIPAA compliance. “We started with the frameworks because we wanted the most power and flexibility to create a brilliant conversational experience,” explained Dr. Miller. 

Instead of going the route of a Facebook Messenger window or an Amazon Alexa, Dr. Miller decided to make Aestheti.bot accessible to everyone through a practice’s website. He even has it installed on his own site, which gets thousands of visitors every month. “I thought, if I put it on my website with a webchat, oh my, I can really increase the intelligence on this system.” Now, some of the top aesthetic medicine practices in the world are automating their conversations through Aestheti.bot. 

In today’s fast-paced world, timely access to medical information is a must and client gratification is a variable that cannot be measured but can certainly impact a practice’s reputation. Dr. Miller’s introduction of the revolutionary Aestheti.bot to the aesthetics community will hopefully circumvent common customer service frustrations to allow practitioners more time for what really matters—empathy and care.