About me
Thanks for stopping by, and nice to meet you. I am Aaron. I trained as an osteopath, ran a clinic for seven years, founded a health tech company, and have sold software into scale-ups and large corporates. Opal is the part I am most invested in, because it lets me help other businesses succeed in an industry I love. Here are the four chapters that got me here.
Treating patients
My training is in osteopathy. For years the working day was a treatment room and a diary, and the notes, letters and referrals that filled the gaps between them.
Running a multidisciplinary clinic
Seven years of it. Practitioners across several disciplines, and me still treating patients while running the place. Rosters, rooms, front desk, billing, referrals, compliance, payroll.
One example of what that teaches you. Referrals were coming in and the people sending them deserved a thank you, so the plan was to gift them something each time. Our practice management software could not do it.
So I built it. Digital gift cards, and an email system that fired on its own every time a referral arrived. After that it ran in the background and stopped being something anyone had to remember.
That is the lesson I still work from. The software you already pay for will not do everything, and the gap is usually smaller than it looks.
Founding a health tech company
Nutrition software, built in New Zealand, for people trying to eat better alongside a change they had already started at the gym.
It sold to gyms rather than to individuals. A gym subscribed, then handed the app to its members. Same shape as a principal buying software for their practitioners to use.
Selling technology for a living
First inside a practice management software company, selling to practices and allied health clinics. Having been that buyer already, the questions were familiar.
Then a corporate sales role at a major CRM company, selling across every industry there is.
The surprise was how much of it carries over. Finding leads, qualifying them and looking after someone after the sale is much the same work in a clinic as it is anywhere else.
Most AI tools fail in a clinic for the same reason
Nobody helps with the change.
Nobody sits down at the start and works out what would genuinely make a difference, as opposed to what sounds impressive. So it gets bought, it sits there, and everyone decides AI does not work.
That first conversation is the part I enjoy. Taking the problem apart and working out what is actually worth doing.
I have run a practice. I know what it feels like when the week finally gets easier.
Opal Health Consulting sells no software and takes no commission from any vendor. The only thing I have to sell you is my time.