Welcome to Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

00:39

Hello, and welcome to the show. Today, we are talking about how health practitioners can use AI without breaking confidentiality. Why am I talking about this?

00:32

Well, the majority of my clients, particularly inside the Everyday Sales Accelerator, are nutritional therapists, psychologists, and yes, there are coaches and spiritual coaches and more within the wellness sector inside the accelerator. But a good number of my long-term clients who’ve been with me for years are the psychologists and the nutritional therapists. So anytime I create anything, I always create it with them in mind because they’re the ones who have the ethics to stand by and the different obligations that many other coaches don’t necessarily need to consider.

01:15

And so today, today, gang, this episode is dedicated to you because what I’m seeing increasingly is there can be some adversity or fear around using AI. And my goal with this episode, this little 10-minute nugget of an episode, is to help you move beyond that fear and start using AI confidently because those of us who are using AI right now are, well, essentially doing laps around those who aren’t, okay? But let’s get into my personal perspective on it before we get into it because I do appreciate that AI is pretty Marmite right now as a subject, and very understandably so.

01:43 

And certainly for health practitioners, very often there’s a quiet voice saying, “But what about my client’s confidentiality?” Or a loud voice, quite rightly. This is what this episode is specifically about. But I wanted to talk about where I stand because obviously one thing that’s talked about a lot, and something that I care about deeply, is that AI is bad for the environment. And the other thing that I’m enormously concerned by as well is that it seems to be impairing a lot of people’s critical judgment, and it’s doing horrible things when it comes to creativity.

02:28

I went to an art house cinema the other day with my husband, and we love going there. It’s a lovely old cinema. Duke of York’s if you’re in Brighton and you know it. It’s gorgeous. But the first three adverts we watched were all AI-generated, and we were watching a really lovely old film. It’s called Cinema Paradiso, all about the art of cinema and the beauty of cinema and what it’s, what it represents beyond the actual film you’re watching. And to have watched three AI-generated adverts beforehand, my heart just sank. So I, I don’t wanna by any means– You know, there’s a reason why I’ve not niched into being an AI expert despite the fact I use it every day in my business, and it is because it’s a highly contentious issue, and I have varying feelings around it day in, day out, okay?

03:13

So I guess this is an important piece. Here’s what I don’t use AI for. I don’t use it for creating mindless memes. I don’t use it for photo shoots. I think they’re pretty creepy. I also don’t, you know, I, I get that photo shoots are curated, but I still like that I’m seeing you. I wanna see you in your full glory. And when I say full glory, that sounds a bit creepy. But I guess what I’m saying is I wanna see your wrinkles, I wanna see your slightly wonky hair. Like, those things reassure me that you are yet another human being that would understand me.

03:33

And highly filtered, highly … I don’t know. I don’t like it, okay? I, I, you know, I Yeah, it’s a whole thing. That’s just my stance, okay? I understand a lot of people use them. I understand there’s advantages to it for some, but I personally would rather see a mobile selfie of somebody or a photo of them at an event than see them in some kind of fake, fake, fake environment. I don’t use it for fake videos. I find, you know, a lot of that unnecessary and a lot of it unhelpful. And yes, the environment matters to me, so one thing I know is that one text prompt uses a small amount of energy, but images and videos use a lot more, and it all adds up.

04:09

So I keep to text, and I’m very selective about what I use it for. And here’s the rule I never break. AI never comes up with my ideas. I do. I ask it to tidy and tighten my existing ideas. I come in with a moment of inspiration. I come in with a reflection. I come in with a podcast transcript like this one and ask it to tidy it up for me. But the, the things I’m sharing with you right now, as you can probably hear, are my own thoughts and perspective with my own little ADHD tangents thrown in there too. And here’s the slightly awkward bit. The naysayers, the people who advocate for not using AI at all.

04:52

The thing is, unless you’re living under a rock, not using the internet, not using a TV, not using any apps, then the likelihood is you already are using AI. If you’ve ever used the background remover in Canva, that’s AI. If you searched for something recently and read the summary at the top of the results, that’s AI. If you use autocorrect, suggested email replies, or use the transcript on a video call or created captions, that’s AI. You know, the shows that Netflix thinks you’ll like, that’s AI. So unless you step away from the internet altogether, you’re probably already using some of it.

05:32

So for me, the question isn’t whether we should use AI or whether it should feature in what we do, it’s more about how carefully and intentionally do we use AI. And for you as a health practitioner, carefully has a very particular meaning, which brings me to the one rule, okay? So the rule is, as you probably are aware of by now, that client information stays out of AI tools. No names, no session notes, nothing that could identify someone. And when I say our AI tools, I’m not talking about Practice Better or, you know, any of those things. I’m talking about Claude, I’m talking about ChatGPT.

06:01

I am aware that there is software that is using AI that is not internet-based, which means you can safely use AI for session notes, so that’s brilliant. But when we’re talking about things like Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, you should not be putting any health information in there. And obviously, if you’re using specific software that is built for health practitioners, obviously you just want to ensure that it is approved by the body that you work alongside or under. So Yeah. So the health, health, uh, and the reason for, for this, of course, is that health information is a special category data under UK GDPR.

06:4

You hold it under professional confidentiality, and an AI tool doesn’t carry that protection. And it’s not only current clients. An inquiry from someone thinking about working with you can contain personal and health information too. And similarly, removing the name often isn’t enough to make something anonymous, which is why the safe move is to leave it out. So there are three questions I’d encourage you to ask yourself before you paste anything into AI, and that is, could this identify a person? Does it touch their health or why they’re seeking help?

07:24

Am I unsure? If it’s yes to any of those, it stays out. What is fine, of course, is your own business thinking, marketing, your own writing, and your own general questions. So there are two practical steps that you can take to enable you to run your business more efficiently without compromising client confidentiality, um, when we’re thinking about the smooth systems and operations in your business. And one of them is having a simple system within which you keep your client emails separate from your business and promo email, and check the privacy settings in whichever tool you are using.

08:00

So if your inquiries and client responses, even your promo email responses, all filter through to the same email address, that means you can use Claude features where it integrates with your Gmail so that things like replying to your accountant, responding to your website developer, and all of those other pieces that can take up our evenings or be one of those last-minute thoughts as we fall asleep, is actually being managed by Claude. So yeah, and that’s the kind of thing that I use, and it’s so helpful to essentially have an admin assistant in-house.

08:28

But obviously, if you are mixing those two, two types of information within the same inbox, that is gonna be a challenge for you, and it’s such a simple thing to make an adjustment around, so I’d highly recommend doing that. Another question for you, of course, is around the practice software that you are using. There are more than one, so I’m not gonna go into that specifically right now. But obviously it’s important that you have an awareness around what is switched on and, like I say, that you’ve run it by the body that you operate under to ensure that it is approved by them.

09:04 

Obviously, AI is evolving all the time, which is why it makes this kind of conversation challenging and also why I probably drop an episode, I don’t know, about at least every one to two months on AI because it’s evolving so quickly. The things I share six months ago are irrelevant. And so it’s, it’s something that’s constantly moving and adjusting, and therefore wherever we are using AI in our business, it’s something that we need to come back to, particularly when you are dealing with something as sensitive as client data Obviously, it’s really important to say here that this is top-line guidance, not legal advice.

09:38

And because there are different bodies with different rules, it’s always important that you obviously look into them f- primarily, and then obviously beyond that, it’s important to have a lawyer that you trust who’s sharing GDPR updates, et cetera. I personally am in Lucy Legal’s membership for that reason alone. So finding a lawyer within the online business space who can ensure that you are regularly up-to-date on these things is important, too. Or listen to podcasts like this. I will do my best to update you as well. But it pays to hear it from the horse’s mouth, because a tiny inaccuracy can make a world of difference, right?

10:14

Okay, so once you know where the line is, there’s a lot you can do on the safe side of it. The planning, the follow-ups for your business, the newsletter you keep putting off, a thinking partner for the bits of running a practice that nobody trained you for. That’s what I’m gonna be supporting health practitioners build in a workshop on Monday. Yes, in three days’ time from when this episode comes out. There will be a replay if you are hearing this late. It’s called AI For Your Practice, Handled With Care. It’s gonna be live on Zoom, Monday 12th of October, 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM UK time.

10:33

It’s £22, but everyone will also get a replay. You’re gonna build a morning reset, a way of drafting content in your own voice, and a quiet thinking partner with the confingen- confidentiality rule built in from the start. No technical background needed. The link is gonna be in the show notes. So yes, if you take one thing from this episode, make it this: client information stays out. Everything else is a conversation. I hope this has been helpful. AI is an absolute game changer, and let’s face it, probably some of the heaviest, most cumbersome aspects of what you do in your business aren’t the things that you trained for and the clients you’re looking after.

11:25

It’s everything else about how you organize your business around the outside, and the heaviness of late-night social media posts that are being drafted because you hadn’t managed to get round to it all day. AI can really tidy up all of those aspects for you so you get to run an efficient practice. We can create virtual team members to make your life significantly easier, and that is what you’re gonna be learning all about on Monday if you come and join us. If you can’t join us, I will be dedicating more episodes to this theme, because I feel like it’s such an important one.

11:47 

But I hope you can join us, ’cause it’s the first workshop of its kind, and I’m excited to be running it. If you have any questions around AI, particularly if you’re a health practitioner, I want to hear from you. DM me @pollylavarello. Share your questions with me, because I would like to build on this series. So any questions you have that I can answer through the medium of podcast, do DM them to me. And in the meantime, if you found this episode helpful, please do share it with a fellow health practitioner or give me a lovely five-star rating.  I welcome all of it. I’ll be in your ears next week.