AI that runs the doctor's office
Lassie is building AI that runs small businesses, starting with the doctor's office. Most doctors got into healthcare to care for patients and ended up running an office full of paperwork, so we're building AI that takes that work off their plate.
Today that means handling insurance payments for dental practices across the United States, which takes around 30 hours of work a month off each office. We raised $47M led by a16z and we're growing fast out of San Francisco and Toronto.
Open the door
Business development reps at Lassie call practices that have never heard of us and earn the meeting where one of our account executives shows them Lassie. You won't close a deal in this case. Your job is to get the next conversation, and the one after that, until the owner is ready to sit down with us.
Down the funnel
Every round is a live phone call with a judge playing the person who picks up. Each call takes you one step closer to the decision, and what you learn on one call is yours to use on the next.
The front desk
Whoever picks up is friendly, busy and very good at getting salespeople off the phone. Get past the brush off and leave knowing four things: the office manager's name, the best time to reach her, which practice management software they use, and who does the insurance posting.
The office manager
The office manager would feel Lassie before anyone else, which means she decides whether the owner ever hears about it. Find out what her day is really like and make her want this.
The owner
Dr. Okafor runs the practice and decides on anything that costs money. Run discovery, find out what this problem costs her in hours and dollars, like staff overtime, and give her a reason to see Lassie.
The world you're calling into
Understanding this is most of the job, because the people you'll talk to live in it every day.
- A patient gets treatment, and the practice sends a claim to the patient's insurance company.
- Weeks later the insurer pays, usually by paper check. The payment comes with an EOB, a statement showing what was paid for each patient and procedure.
- Someone at the practice, usually the office manager, types every line of that EOB into the practice's software by hand. This is called posting, and at a busy office it takes hours every day.
- Then they check that what they posted matches what actually landed in the bank, and chase anything that doesn't.
Three kinds of pain
Time
Posting is slow, repetitive work that lands on the busiest person in the office, and it often gets done after the last patient leaves.
Getting paid
Paper checks sit on a desk until someone has time to deposit and post them, so money the practice already earned takes weeks longer to show up.
Mistakes
When posting falls behind or gets rushed, payments get missed or entered wrong, and patients get bills that don't make sense.
The work, done for them
Posting
Lassie reads every EOB and posts each payment into the practice management software, line by line, the way their team would.
Bank matching
Every payment shows up in one place, matched to what landed in the bank, with anything that needs a person flagged.
Direct deposit
Lassie helps practices move from paper checks to direct deposit, so the money lands faster and nobody has to drive to the bank. It's a bonus, and practices rarely buy for it alone.
Full visibility
Lassie connects to the practice management software they already run, like Dentrix, Open Dental or Eaglesoft, and every payment it posts is right there for the team to see and check.
What Lassie doesn't do: send insurance claims, check a patient's coverage or handle appeals. Practices often assume we do, so be clear about it.
If someone asks what Lassie costs: pricing depends on the practice, and the account executive walks through it in the meeting. Never guess a number.
How you'll be scored
Presence
How you sound on the phone: your tone, pace and confidence, and whether the person on the other end wants to keep talking to you.
Discovery
The questions you ask, how well you listen, and whether you find out what's really going on before you start pitching.
How we run discovery
Good discovery follows the work: who does it, what they use, what's still done by hand, and what that time would be better spent on. Ask one question at a time and follow the answer rather than a list.
- "Who handles insurance payments day to day?"
- "What do they use to get it done?"
- "What still has to be done by hand?"
- "Which part takes more time than you'd like?"
- "If that took less time, what would you want them spending it on?"
With an owner, turn it into money: "How many hours a week does that take? Is anyone staying late or getting paid overtime for it?"
The best discovery puts a number on the pain, like how many hours a week or how far behind, because a problem with a number attached is one an owner wants solved.
Handling pushback
Everyone you call will push back. Stay calm, stay curious, and keep the conversation moving without arguing or folding.
How we handle it
A cold call lands in the middle of someone else's day, so the first thing you hear is usually a reflex. Psychologists call fast, automatic thinking System 1 and slower, deliberate thinking System 2 (Kahneman). "I'm busy" or "just send me an email" is often System 1 reacting to the interruption, which means arguing with it goes nowhere. Your job is to make it easy for them to start actually thinking about the conversation.
At Lassie we use NASCAR:
- Notice. In your head, work out whether they're reacting to the interruption ("not interested") or to what you're calling about ("we already have a system for that").
- Acknowledge. Show you heard them. "Yeah, totally fair."
- Sidestep. Move into something relevant without arguing. "Can I quickly ask..."
- Continue. Keep the conversation going with something relevant to them. "...you mentioned your office manager handles the billing..."
- Ask a question. If they're reacting to the interruption, make it low lift, like "she's the one posting the insurance payments, right?" If they're reacting to the topic, ask about the exact thing they said. Then pause and let them answer.
- Real talk. Lower the stakes and say plainly why you called. "I'm not asking you to change anything today. I just wanted to understand how you're handling it."
If they clearly say no or genuinely have to go, respect it. Knowing when to stop counts too.
Carrying it forward
The best reps use what they learned on earlier calls. It counts for a lot, so pay attention to everything you hear.
The ask
Ask for a specific day and time. "Would Tuesday at 12:30 work?" is a booking, and "I'll send you some info" is not.
How to ask
Offer two options instead of an open question. "Are mornings good for you, or are afternoons better?" is easier to answer than "When works for you?", and either answer moves the call forward because to pick one, they've already said yes to meeting.
Then lock it in: repeat the day and time back, and confirm who'll be there.
Honesty
Never make up facts about Lassie, promise things we don't do or invent urgency. Judges score it down hard.
Glossary
| PMS | Practice management system, the practice's main software. Dentrix, Open Dental and Eaglesoft are the big ones. Lassie posts into it. |
| Claim | The bill a practice sends to a patient's insurance company after treatment. |
| EOB | Explanation of benefits, the statement from insurance showing what they paid and why. |
| Posting | Entering insurance payments into the PMS. This is the work Lassie takes over. |
| Office manager | Runs the front of the practice: the team, the schedule, and usually the insurance payments. |
Five things the best competitors do
- Learn the world. Make sure you can explain how a practice gets paid by insurance and what posting is, in your own words.
- Plan each call. Write a short opener, the questions you'd lead with, and what you expect each person to push back on.
- Learn NASCAR. It's in the Handling pushback expander above, and it's how our reps handle the brush off.
- Practice out loud. Have a friend play the front desk, the office manager and the owner, and run each call more than once.
- Bring your questions. Use the live sessions with the Lassie team to test your thinking before the day.
Ask us anything
The Lassie sales team will host three live sessions over Zoom before January 29, where you can ask about the case, the industry and what it's like to do this job for real. Dates are coming soon.