In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint, Kyle sits down with Will Hayes, Growth Manager at Third Way Health, to break down how AI is reshaping the front office of healthcare – from no-show patterns to call-center quality assurance to the very real human trust required to run a clinic.
Will brings a unique vantage point. He sits at the intersection of growth, product, and operations. He sees where clinics struggle, where AI shines, and where it still needs human reinforcement. And like many guests in the healthcare series, his insights are grounded in real-world outcomes, not theory.
His conversation with Kyle opens the door into how modern clinics operate – and where AI is making the biggest difference.
Meet Will Hayes & The Origin of Third Way Health
Before diving into AI and operations, Kyle asks Will to introduce himself and share what Third Way actually does.
Will explains that he joined Third Way two years ago, relocating from the Midwest to Los Angeles to help grow a young company tackling one of healthcare’s most universal problems: front-office complexity.
Third Way serves both payers and providers, acting as a virtual front office that handles appointment scheduling, phone calls, insurance verification, reminders, follow-ups, and patient questions – all so that in-clinic teams can focus solely on in-person patient care.
Will paints the picture clearly:
Patients still like calling. Phone volumes are high. Hold times can stretch 20 minutes or more. Front-desk teams are overwhelmed by juggling phones, walk-ins, insurance questions, and scheduling errors. Third Way solves this by running all of that infrastructure virtually, with AI and human teams working in tandem.
And before setting the foundation for the rest of the conversation, Will completes Kyle’s signature prompt:
“I think AI is exponential.”
As he explains it, adoption won’t grow in a straight line – it will compound, exactly the way the internet did.
What Healthcare Operations Really Means
Kyle asks Will to define “healthcare operations,” since the phrase can feel vague.
Will grounds it immediately in day-to-day reality. A medical practice’s front office handles everything: incoming calls, appointment changes, insurance checks, reminders, no-show follow-ups, and any question a patient might bring.
That environment is chaotic. Patients call for dozens of reasons, systems don’t always sync, and many clinics don’t have reliable self-scheduling. Even when online booking exists, patients still often prefer calling.
Third Way’s model simplifies the experience:
The in-clinic front desk handles only the in-person line.
Third Way handles everything else.
It’s operational clarity that feels rare in healthcare today.
The Hidden Story in No-Shows (and What Data Reveals)
Kyle then references a viral LinkedIn post from Third Way – an analysis of millions of appointment calls revealing when patients are most likely to no-show.
Will expands on the insights:
• Early morning: Everyone shows up.
• Lunch hour: In-person attendance stays strong, but telehealth dips significantly.
• 4 pm vs. 5 pm: A steep drop-off – “20% to close to 30% of people ended up not showing.”
This data shapes scheduling strategy, staffing decisions, and even double-booking logic. As Kyle notes, it tells a human story behind the numbers – burnout, transportation, routines, and friction.
And for clinics, it unlocks revenue and efficiency that used to feel unpredictable.
Where AI Creates the Biggest Impact Today
Kyle asks where AI is truly moving the needle in healthcare operations, and Will doesn’t hesitate: AI-powered quality assurance.
“No organization can realistically listen to every call,” Will explains. “For most organizations, it might be 5%, 10% you’re able to review. But with AI, you can review 100% of calls and it can score them.”
With full-call visibility, clinics can finally measure script adherence, audit tone, identify compliance issues, and train teams based on data – not assumptions.
The second major operational win?
Accurate scheduling and insurance verification.
As Will puts it:
“You don’t want someone showing up, getting seen, and then getting a surprise bill in the mail. AI in the background makes sure their insurance was verified before being seen.”
It’s the unglamorous, behind-the-scenes AI – and it’s where the biggest ROI lives.
AI + Humans > AI Alone
When Kyle asks the big question – Why not automate the entire front office? – Will’s answer is clear: AI is powerful, but it’s still a tool.
He explains Third Way’s hybrid model through their voice AI, Dino:
“You might call in and Dino can change your appointment… but if it’s something more complicated, Dino escalates it to a human.”
The danger of pure AI systems, Will says, is familiar:
“You fall into waiting 20 minutes on the phone – just like before ever working with Third Way.”
Third Way prevents that loop by combining automation with instant human escalation.
For a high-trust industry like healthcare, Will believes this is the only viable model:
“AI still needs people to make it right.”
Why Trust and Buy-In Still Matter
When Kyle asks about pushback from clinics, Will says the conversation always starts with trust.
“They want to know: Who are you? Can we trust you talking to our patients? Do you actually understand what we’re going through?”
And what’s especially interesting is the pattern he’s seen recently:
“In the past month, we’ve had several saying, ‘AI fell short. We were constantly having to update and manage the bot internally.’”
Leaders want AI – but they also want a partner who can manage it for them.
That’s where Third Way’s hybrid, high-trust model resonates most:
AI where it helps.
Humans where it matters.
A Real-World Success Story
When Kyle asks for a tangible win, Will shares a case from a 30-doctor, multi-location medical group struggling with both internal staffing and an external vendor.
After piloting Third Way at 1–2 sites, they expanded across the organization.
The results were decisive:
“We reduced their spend on patient access operations by 35% and they saw 11% more visits.”
As Will says, it’s the clearest operational win: do more for less – while improving the patient experience.
Why Patient Satisfaction (CSAT) Is the North Star
Kyle notes that Third Way holds a 4.8/5 patient satisfaction rating and asks how central that metric is internally.
Will’s answer:
“CSAT is always at the top of our analytics page.”
Every call ends with a survey.
Every client sees their numbers weekly.
Every team is accountable to what patients actually say.
“You can’t fight the data.”
Scaling AI Adoption Across Large Health Systems
Kyle then expands the conversation to the enterprise level:
How are the biggest health systems – those with dozens of clinics and thousands of employees – thinking about AI?
Will explains that their needs are very different from a single independent practice. Enterprise leaders think in terms of patterns across locations, operational bottlenecks, and systemic gaps that affect hundreds of thousands of patient interactions.
And to ground the conversation, he references Third Way’s internal analysis of 65 conversations with COOs and CEOs:
“Number one was staff turnover. Number two was cost pressures. Number three was service quality.”
This is the real picture inside large healthcare organizations. Leaders aren’t talking about futuristic AI.
They’re talking about staffing shortages, overflowing call queues, underbooked doctors, and rising costs.
Will adds that even at the highest levels – regional operators, VPs, enterprise COOs – the message is the same:
“Ever since COVID, we haven’t been able to staff this.”
It’s not a small-clinic problem.
It’s not a temporary problem.
It’s a system-wide problem.
And that’s why enterprise adoption of AI is accelerating. Not because it’s trendy, but because it relieves pressure where clinics are breaking down:
- AI stabilizes scheduling workflows
- AI reduces the burden on understaffed call centers
- AI helps fill doctor schedules
- AI increases service quality without increasing headcount
As Will puts it, large systems are now looking at AI not as a shiny new toy – but as an operational support layer holding together an overstretched ecosystem.
Looking Five Years Ahead
To close the conversation, Kyle zooms out and asks the big question:
What will healthcare operations look like five years from now?
Will immediately imagines a world where AI is fully normalized in everyday patient interactions – not in a sci-fi way, but in a practical, familiar way.
The same way we adjusted to online banking, mobile boarding passes, and customer-service chatbots.
But then he shifts to what he believes is the real transformation ahead.
“AI is going to really define what the human touch actually is.”
As AI becomes more capable, he believes it will sharpen-not blur-the lines between automation and empathy.
It will reveal exactly where humans matter most in care: trust, reassurance, nuance, emotion, and judgment.
He jokes about how foreign today’s processes will feel to the next generation:
“Back in my day, I had to call, we had to talk to a human… and we had to wait a long time.”
But beneath the humor, he draws a clear line.
Even in a world where AI handles routine intake, scheduling, reminders, routing, and documentation, Will stresses that human beings remain irreplaceable:
“I could confidently say we’re always going to need humans.”
In his view, AI won’t erase the human element of healthcare.
It will clear the noise so humans can focus on what they do best – connection, care, and the moments that impact patient trust.
Rapid Fire Highlights
If a genie granted you a fully implemented, automated system at no cost, what would it be?
“Laundry.”
A pitch you’ll never forget?
“Going on-site and meeting a client for the first time… interacting with doctors in the morning and then meeting with the C-suite.”
He added that the biggest lesson was realizing “the data drives the discussion” and that staying up late to get the numbers right “wasn’t wasted time.
As a mechanical engineering grad, what would you love to peek under the hood of?
“I want to talk to someone who designs roller coasters… an immersive day and then you get to ride at the end.”
Missouri BBQ or LA tacos?
“KC BBQ.”
Your MLB walk-up song?
“Hindsight by Audion.”
Final Thoughts
Will Hayes brings clarity to an overlooked truth: healthcare starts long before a patient walks into a clinic. Every call answered, every no-show recovered, every insurance check resolved-those operational moments shape trust, experience, and outcomes.
AI can accelerate all of it. But as Will emphasizes, the magic happens when AI handles the repetitive work and humans handle the nuance. Not AI alone. Not humans alone. A coordinated front office where each plays to its strengths.
Third Way Health is proving what modern healthcare operations can look like: measurable efficiency, happier patients, and teams that finally have room to breathe.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation:
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📄 Read the full transcript on Left Brain AI
https://www.leftbrainenterprises.biz/
