Anyone who has ever had to go to clinics and hospitals knows the feeling of repeating the same information several times, filling out similar forms, sending documents by message, and waiting for a response regarding authorization for tests. In a country that has developed sophisticated digital banks and exports technology in agribusiness, the administrative routine of healthcare still often seems analog.
It was from this experience that Cláudio Franco founded Tivita, a startup focused on automating administrative routines in clinics and doctor's offices. While attending medical appointments in his family, he realized the amount of manual processes, rework, and message exchanges involved in tasks that, in theory, could be simple.
In an interview with Revolução IA , a NeoFeed program supported by Magalu Cloud, he stated that small and medium-sized clinics want to innovate, but end up squeezed between two extremes: AI tools aimed at the end consumer, which do not meet the needs of the business, and corporate solutions that are too expensive for the reality of these structures.
“You have the race for large companies, with huge teams and very large technology budgets. And then there's the other race, which is for the consumer, with all these personal assistants. But in the middle, we have a large part of the economy that is very concentrated in small and medium-sized enterprises. And these companies are generally forgotten,” says Franco.
Because of this, independent practices, specialized clinics, and diagnostic centers continue to operate with tight margins and a high volume of administrative tasks, such as confirming appointments, answering questions about exam preparation, and rescheduling, which consumes a lot of the team's time and doesn't always happen within business hours.
When it comes to billing, since the Brazilian system brings together hundreds of health insurance providers, each with its own rules for authorizations and payments, a small error in filling out a form can simply mean not getting paid for a procedure that has already been performed.
According to Franco, this is where technology can have a practical impact. In clinics that have adopted automation in administrative processes, efficiency gains can reach 25% to 60% in the billing area, with a reduction in rework and errors that lead to revenue loss.
In customer service, a significant portion of appointments can already be resolved without human intervention, freeing up staff for less repetitive tasks. However, even before implementing any tools, he warns that it's necessary to organize the data.
“The patient and professional registration system needs to be very well structured. And the second point is digitization, because everything that's in someone's head, everything that's on paper, everything that's in the file won't be accessible to intelligence, to agents,” says Franco.