Patients now arrive at consultations having already asked an AI what they need. Not a celebrity photograph — a treatment plan, with unit counts attached.
Maritza Mejia FNP describes the new version of an old problem: “ChatGPT said I need 15 units, 15 units. I'm like, what?”
Dr. Chris Croley, Empire's Chief Medical Officer, points out the continuity. “We had celebrity photos before, right? They would come with something very unrealistic. Now they're coming with their ChatGPT photos.”
Which is true, and it undersells how much has actually changed — because the other half of what Croley reports is considerably more surprising.
AI Outsells His Providers
This is the finding worth sitting with.
“I did not think AI would sell to my patients,” he says. “I live in a very rural part of the Southeast. And I'm like, nobody there is going to want to talk to AI. They're not going to trust AI.”
Then: “AI outsells and outperforms my providers every day of the week. And I'm like, that's me, that's Jerry, that's experienced people — and our patients trust it and they buy thousands of dollars of procedures from the AI.”
He expected rural patients to reject it. They did not. They bought more from it than from experienced clinicians they know personally.
And the accuracy held up better than he anticipated: “Surprisingly, we rarely have to change it. Occasionally they'll buy the wrong thing and we have to say, this is not correct. So it doesn't replace our medical judgment, but I'm constantly surprised at how far this technology has come.”
Why It Works: The Consultation Nobody Is Embarrassed By
The mechanism is not that the AI is more persuasive. It is that the setting is less exposing.
“From a patient, a consumer standpoint, it gives them a safe space,” Croley says. “They can sit at home on their sofa and they can ask all these things in a somewhat confidential or anonymous setting. So they're not having to come and speak to us about it. And they kind of have an idea in their mind by the time they show up.”
Aesthetic consultations ask people to say out loud what they dislike about their own face, to a stranger, in a bright room, while a price list is implied. A meaningful number of patients never book because of that friction alone.
Remove the embarrassment and they will explore the question at length, privately, at eleven at night — and arrive informed rather than defensive.
The Objection, Answered
Melissa Pulcini-Buttine PA names the fear directly, and her own change of position is the useful part.
“Many people are scared that it's going to take over, but it can't take over our practitioner skills and our patient-practitioner relationship,” she says. “I use it as a positive where it's going to educate patients and bring them in with questions that we can then address.”
And on the arc of her own view: “I'm not afraid, I'm excited. I was at first. And now that I've really analysed and learned about it and seen where it fits nicely into the practice, I think we're just going to be emerging in an AI world.”
Mejia lands the boundary in one line: “It can be a conversation starter, but can't replace us.”
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That is the correct framing. The AI produced a request. You produce the assessment.
How to Handle the Patient With a Printout
The instinct is to correct the AI. Resist it — you will be right and it will not help.
- Treat it as a completed intake, not a challenge. This patient has already articulated their concern, which is more than most arrive with.
- Ask what they were hoping to change, not where the numbers came from. The goal behind the request is the thing you can actually treat.
- Explain what your assessment adds. An AI cannot palpate a muscle, watch it animate, read skin quality or examine asymmetry. Say that as a description of your method rather than a defence of your status.
- Be specific about why the number differs. “Your masseter is considerably bulkier on the right, so an even split would leave you asymmetric” beats “that's not how it works.”
- Agree the plan out loud, and note in the record what they arrived asking for.
The failure mode is defensiveness. A patient who feels corrected for doing research goes quiet, and a quiet patient is one whose expectations you can no longer see. This is the same discipline as any expectation conversation — see declining a treatment without losing the patient.
Where Else It Is Already Working
Croley is emphatic that the consultation is the least interesting application.
“We really need to start expanding our minds as to what parts of the practice,” he says, listing where he uses it: “practice management, marketing, KPIs and ways that we're looking at finances, financial analysis — so many areas.”
For most practices the operational uses are lower-risk and faster to adopt than anything patient-facing: drafting patient communications for a clinician to approve, first-pass marketing copy, analysing which services actually carry the practice, summarising reviews, and the reporting that owners otherwise postpone indefinitely. The KPI question in particular is where practices most often have a gap — see I bought myself a job.
What It Does Not Change
Three things, stated plainly because the enthusiasm around this topic tends to blur them.
It is not a clinical decision-maker. Croley's own framing: it does not replace medical judgment. A unit count produced without examining a face is a suggestion.
It does not carry your liability. Whatever the patient was told before arriving, the treatment decision and its consequences are yours.
It cannot do the relationship. The reason patients return is trust built in the room, which is the one thing in this business that does not scale.
Empire covers the practice applications in the AI Marketing Masterclass for Practice Growth and the wider marketing layer in Med Spa Patient Marketing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I do when a patient brings an AI treatment plan?
Treat it as a completed intake rather than a challenge. Ask what they were hoping to change, explain what a physical assessment adds that an AI cannot do, and be specific about why your recommendation differs. Correcting the AI rather than addressing the goal makes patients go quiet.
Will AI replace aesthetic injectors?
Faculty view is that it cannot replace clinical judgment or the practitioner-patient relationship, but that it is already effective at the information-gathering stage. One practice reports patients buying substantial treatment plans through an AI tool, while clinicians retain the assessment and the decision.
Why do patients trust an AI consultation?
Because it removes embarrassment. Aesthetic concerns are uncomfortable to voice to a stranger, and a private, anonymous setting lets patients explore the question fully before they ever book.
Where can a practice use AI beyond consultations?
Practice management, marketing, KPI tracking and financial analysis are where faculty report the most immediate value, and they carry less clinical risk than anything patient-facing.
Disclaimer
This article is educational and is not medical, legal or technology advice. AI tools do not replace clinical assessment, and the treating clinician remains responsible for the treatment decision, the consent process and the outcome regardless of what a patient was told before arriving. Consider patient privacy and applicable data protection requirements before using any AI tool with patient information.
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