Contradictory customer demands

When working on features for Ambiki, we occasionally face the paradox of conflicting customer demands.

Take, for example, the "pull forward" feature of visit notes. Essentially, this feature lets a therapist use a previous visit note from the same patient as a starting template for their upcoming note.

Some practices have told us they won't consider Ambiki UNLESS it offers this feature.

Conversely, other practices say they won't use Ambiki IF it includes this feature.

Both perspectives are valid. So, what's the best approach?

Let's delve into the reasons behind these views.

Practices in favor of this feature view it as a significant time-saver. With many therapists experiencing burnout and considering leaving the profession, any tool that enhances efficiency and reduces the administrative burden is seen as beneficial.

However, practices opposing this feature perceive it as a potential liability. They're concerned about insurance claims being denied if notes are too similar. They worry that it could promote subpar practices, possibly resulting in patients experiencing a lack of diversity in their sessions. Or even worse, it could lead to oversights if a therapist forgets to edit a detail that's different from the previous session.

How do we navigate such dilemmas?

Our starting point is always our guiding principles. A key one, which I've discussed before, is "opinionated configurability." We have a clear vision for Ambiki but also ensure it remains adaptable to meet individual practice needs.

For this particular feature, our opinionated stance is that it should be available by default. We recognize the challenges therapists face—overwork and the risk of burnout. Our aim is to alleviate some of the administrative pressures they experience without compromising the quality of progress tracking. We trust therapists as professionals and want to empower them with tools that they deem suitable for their needs.

Yet, we also respect and understand the reservations some have. So, we:

• Offer practices on Ambiki the choice to disable this feature.
• Have developed a cloned notes analysis and detection tool. This system automatically highlights notes that exceed a certain similarity threshold, flagging them for review.

With every challenge we face at Ambiki, our commitment remains — designing solutions that honor both the expertise of therapists and the intricate needs of each practice.