The artificial intelligence-based Aestheti.Bot assistant is designed specifically for the medical aesthetics community.

By Tonya Johnson

Philip Miller, MD, FACS—a New York facial plastic surgeon and chief executive officer of PlacerTech Inc, has introduced the Aestheti.Bot to keep his professional colleagues at the forefront of innovation in the marketplace. Prior to designing the medical aesthetic communications tool, Miller says his staff spent about 90% of their office time fielding frequently asked questions from their current and potential clients. The Linchpin report on Key Chatbot Statistics to Know in 2021, indicates that the healthcare industry (among finance, education, travel, and real estate) is profiting the most from AI chatbot usage. PlacerTech Inc’s latest artificial intelligence-charged chatbot is built to enhance the patient experience and increase efficiency in plastic surgery practice management.

“After demonstrating the Aestheti.Bot to other practitioners, I’m often told— ‘It’s about time there’s something like this in the marketplace!’ Chatbots are leading the way in the tech field, and the aesthetic community has always been eager to incorporate this exciting new technology,” says Miller.

Must-have features incorporated into the chatbot, based on some of the feedback he’s received, include the ability to customize responses; functionality for multiple websites; a simple yet effective way to capture and report leads; and integration into lead generation management software. For example, the company is now live with MedicalPRM (Symplast) and My Medical Leads as it looks forward to integrating with other lead generation software. Aestheti.Bot is designed to handle all of this and much more, says the company leader. It’s part of the AesthetiSuite platform, that Jon Malave, his lead software developer at PlacerTech Inc, helped bring to life.

During research and development, they used the Google Cloud Platform and Dialogflow to provide a natural language processing service that adopts machine learning to find insights. Next they brought on Botcopy to not only create customized end-user interfaces for each practice that uses Aestheti.Bot, but to also help facilitate more accurate responses—24/7, 365 days a year. In addition to the Aestheti.Bot, the product portfolio suite includes the Reminder System and Notification System. The software suite is now being used by doctors working in medical spas, private plastic surgery practices, and surgical centers across the country.

To learn more about the evolving tech package, and how providers are able to benefit from this type of platform, Plastic Surgery Practice spoke with Miller, and Douglas Steinbrech, MD, FACS, of Alpha Male Plastic Surgery, who owns and operates practice locations in Midtown Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Dubbed by Forbes Magazine as the “go-to surgeon for men,” Steinbrech and his staff serve approximately 150 patients, seeking cosmetic procedures across all three locations every week. He went live with Aestheti.Bot about a year ago.

“These days, potential clients want answers to their questions quickly,” says Steinbrech. “We live in an era of instant gratification. Aestheti.Bot helps us communicate with our current and prospective patients quickly and effectively, converting those conversations into paying clients!”

Plastic Surgery Practice: How is Aestheti.Bot unique in today’s marketplace?

Philip Miller, MD, FACS: Other chatbots that are available for medical practices are either a simple robot trying to gather basic demographic information, or a representative who works overseas and is given a script to run your bot, along with 20 others at the same time. Aestheti.Bot is a fully automated chatbot designed specifically for the medical aesthetics community. We wanted to create a chatbot—driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning, that could be fully personalized and could learn as it interacted with clients. Aestheti.bot does just that, in addition to offering the lead generation basics most practices seek.

PSP: How does the Aestheti.Bot work?

Miller: Upon the on-boarding process, log into the portal and input your practice and doctor information. Then you’ll have the capability to select what procedures each doctor on staff performs. From there you can edit over 10,000 pre-programmed responses for procedure related questions. The pre-programmed responses are created by a medical team, and answered rather broadly, so our practice did not feel the need to edit them. Once the doctor information, and medical background is provided for the practice, Aestheti.Bot is deployed onto your website and can begin answering patient FAQs and storing their contact info right away. Once Aestheti.Bot is integrated with your practice management software, the system is set up to provide easier access to our bot-generated leads.

PSP: Why do you want to help other plastic surgery teams succeed in practice and become more efficient?

Miller: I’ve been in the industry for over 25 years, and during this time I have worked collaboratively with my colleagues to create mechanisms to enhance our patients’ experiences, surgical results, and satisfaction. I regularly attend conferences where experts in the specialty share meaningful data to help enhance one another’s practice. We are stronger together than alone.





  • Philip Miller, MD, FACS




  • Douglas Steinbrech, MD, FACS

PSP: What type FAQs were you spending time on prior to signing up for AesthetiSuite software?

Douglas Steinbrech, MD, FACS: Questions involving basic information about procedures, such as when do you see results, how long is downtime, and what is the cost. Additionally, we were handling more perioperative questions relating to how to prepare for surgery and take care of surgical sites (e.g., How long to ice, how to clean suture lines etc.).

PSP: How has Aestheti.Bot improved your practice workflow?

Steinbrech: Aestheti.Bot has greatly helped free up time for our surgical coordinators. We receive numerous inquiries each day, and now a great deal of those frequently asked questions are handled by Aestheti.Bot. Users have the opportunity to learn more about our procedures, the physicians, and can even ask about pricing (an optional feature that we chose to take advantage of). When they express interest in a particular surgery, that’s when we consider them vetted, and direct their information to our practice coordinators.

PSP: Describe the Reminder System and Notification System that are included with the AesthetiSuite.

Miller: The Reminder System and Notification System have been integral in improving patient experiences and outcomes once they are an active patient with an aesthetics practice. These systems have been a great way to customize the patient’s experience. The Reminder System sends one-way SMS messages to patients leading up to surgery. For example, on the evening before a procedure, the patient will receive a customized message reminding them no eating or drinking after a certain time. The Notification System is a one-way SMS text messaging service to caregivers who are waiting for their loved ones to get out of surgery. It helps keep them in the loop and feel more connected and relaxed during the surgery. Just like Aestheti.Bot, we are constantly working to upgrade and develop the Reminder System and Notification System to keep the software at the forefront of medical technology in 2021 and beyond.

PSP: Are you currently implementing the Reminder System and Notification System at your practice locations in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago?

Steinbrech: Yes! We have gotten great feedback from our patients and their caregivers on these systems. The Reminder System and Notification System help customize each patient’s experience and facilitates a closer relationship between them and their provider.

PSP: What features and benefits of the technology do you value most?

Steinbrech: The lead generation has been invaluable to our practice. It enables us to add potential patients to our email marketing campaigns and communicate with a greater number of prospective patients more quickly.

PSP: What type of training is available, and how is customer service?

Miller: Aestheti.Bot has a support team available to all clients. We’ve launched a setup wizard so new clients can sign up and onboard themselves, and we are happy to help them do so as well. Additionally, we have created instructional videos on how to edit procedures, responses, and doctor information in our portal. We keep our clients informed about the newest updates, and how they can incorporate them, with regular newsletters. Our team of tech experts monitor bot performance for each doctor. So if we notice a particular bot is underperforming, we can provide specific training and guidance on ways to boost engagement, lead generation, and more!

Steinbrech: The customer service team is very quick to reply to any inquiry. Aestheti.Bot’s customer service team resolves our questions and concerns within one business day. We always look forward to receiving the weekly email with analytics to show us how our bot is performing and the company keeps us up to date on the newest developments.

PSP: What’s the easiest way for doctors to get started with the platform?

Steinbrech: We tried the one-month free trial and were excited to continue as a paying customer! You can test out the bot on your site for a whole month and see how it impacts patient satisfaction and lead generation. 

Tonya Johnson is associate editor of Plastic Surgery Practice.