# Renee Hartwell, Practice Administrator at Lakewood Family Medicine Group — read of Clearwater, May 6, 2026

> 11 years running the ops side of a 4-provider family medicine practice in Westerville, Ohio. We're on Athenahealth, use Weave for patient texting, and I have a fax machine I keep saying I'll decommission.

## How I got here

I Googled "automated appointment reminders EMR integration" on a Monday morning after my front desk lead texted me at 7:48 AM to say the overnight message queue had 34 items waiting and she hadn't even clocked in yet. I'd seen a Clearwater LinkedIn ad a few weeks back and ignored it. This time I actually clicked through.

## What I clicked first

The stat bar stopped me: "68% Reduction in no-shows / 4.2 hrs Saved per staff member daily / 14 min Average setup time." I actually said out loud "where do these numbers come from?" No attribution. No "in a study of X practices." Just numbers floating there in bold. The 68% is specific enough to feel made up, if that makes sense. Real data usually comes with caveats. Marketing data never does.

What I did NOT click away from: the problem framing. "New patients call to ask the same 12 questions before their first appointment. Each call takes 8 to 12 minutes. Multiply by 15 new patients a week." That math is correct. I've done that math myself. That section felt like someone had actually talked to a front desk person.

## Where I paused

The referral coordination piece. "Clearwater sends the patient the specialist contact information, follows up to confirm they have booked, and notifies your team if they have not done so within five days." We lose patients in that gap constantly. My providers refer out, the patient gets a printout with a phone number, and then nothing. I have no idea if they called. The patient has no idea why they're supposed to call. Three weeks later the specialist's office calls us asking for records for a patient who hasn't scheduled yet. This feature, if it actually works, is the one I don't see anyone else touching. That's what made me keep reading.

## What I distrusted

The testimonials. "Dr. Sandra K., Family Medicine, Colorado Springs CO." "Marcus T., Owner, Elevation PT Group." No last names. No practice name I can search. I cannot verify a single one. I've been pitched by seven or eight vendors in the last two years and they all have testimonials that look exactly like this. Five stars, round numbers, vague attribution. If these practices exist and are willing to say this, show me a name I can Google. The review going from 3.9 to 4.7 in four months is also a very tidy story that I'd want to triangulate somehow.

Also: "14 minutes" to set up appears twice on this page. The setup wizard takes "about 14 minutes." And then the callout stat at the top says "14 min Average setup time." That number is either astonishingly precise or completely invented. For a tool that integrates with Epic, Athenahealth, your phone system, and your communication preferences, I genuinely cannot imagine a 14-minute guided wizard that is actually configured correctly at the end. That's not how Athenahealth integrations work. I've done them.

## What would convince me

One real case study with a named practice I can look up, even a small one. Not five stars and a first initial. Show me: here is Pinecrest Family Medicine in Fort Collins, they went from a 24% no-show rate to 9% over 90 days, here is their practice manager's actual name and the fact that she'll take a five-minute call. That is all I need. That single thing would move me from reading to booking.

I'd also want to see a short screen recording of what the Athenahealth connection actually looks like. Not a polished demo, a real one where someone is clicking through actual settings. The "40-plus EHRs" claim is either genuinely true or it means they built a Zapier connector that kind of works if the moon is right.

## What I'd ask in an email reply

1. The Athenahealth integration: does it write back to the patient record, or does it sit alongside it? If I confirm through Clearwater that a patient booked their referral, does that touch Athena at all, or do I have to log it separately?

2. The 24/7 chat: when a patient asks something that "requires clinical judgment," what exactly does the escalation look like? Does it page someone? Does it sit in a queue until 8 AM? If a patient is asking about chest pain at 11 PM and the AI flags it, what happens in the next 60 seconds?

3. The $199 solo plan says "up to 300 patient contacts per month." We have around 3,000 active patients and probably touch 150 to 200 a week across reminders, follow-ups, and intake. How is a "contact" counted? Is a reminder sequence for one appointment one contact or three?

## Verdict: on-the-fence

The problem section is the most accurate description of my workday I've read in any vendor pitch. The product sounds real. But I can't verify a single claim, the setup time number doesn't pass the sniff test, and the testimonials are structured exactly like testimonials you'd write if you didn't have any. I'd open a reply email. I probably wouldn't send it before doing 20 more minutes of research first.

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*Memo by skeptic persona, generated 2026-05-06. Studio breaks own self-grading loop.*