The DocBuddy Journal

There's a disconnect between what physicians think private equity wants and what private equity actually wants. The headlines scream "corporate takeover," but the reality on the ground is different.

Host Erik Sunset, CRO at DocBuddy, sits down with John Tiedmann Jr., Managing Director at Physician Growth Partners, to break down the M&A landscape for physician practices in 2026. This isn't about whether PE is good or bad for healthcare - it's about why PE partnerships might be one of the few viable solutions to the physician shortage crisis that nobody's talking about.

Buyers are diligencing tech stacks now. But here's the nuance John brings: we're still in discovery mode. One buyer's AI solution is another practice's failed pilot. The question isn't "Does it have AI?" It's "Does this solve our actual problem, and will our team adopt it?" Organizational buy-in from the top matters more than the shininess of the technology.

This episode talks about extending physician careers during a physician shortage. If PE partnerships can keep physicians practicing 5-10 years longer by removing administrative burden, improving work-life balance, and enabling them to focus on what they trained to do—that's not a corporate takeover. That's a solution to a crisis.

This episode is perfect for physicians considering their options, practice leaders evaluating growth strategies, and anyone concerned about healthcare access as physician shortages accelerate.

Links:
Check out Physician Growth Partners

Explore DocBuddy's Op Note Solution

Follow DocBuddy on LinkedIn

[4:58 PM]

Host Erik sits down with Dr. Peter Stetson, Chief Medical Information Officer at TigerConnect, to discuss the unsolved problem that's been hiding in plain sight: care orchestration. This isn't about better EHRs or more tech tools. It's about what happens when doctors, nurses, surgeons, and entire care teams can't effectively communicate with each other—and what it costs patients when they can't.

Clinicians shouldn't be middleware. Yet that's exactly what healthcare systems have forced them to become. A surgeon waits for imaging that hasn't been transmitted. A nurse juggles alerts from five different systems, none talking to each other. A patient shows up for a procedure only to learn records are missing. Meanwhile, hospital operators still manually look up schedules across multiple screens—swivel chair work in 2026.

Dr. Stetson brings 25+ years as a clinician, 10 years running EHR and digital initiatives at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and current leadership on responsible AI governance. He speaks from lived experience in operating rooms, clinical floors, and the systems that either enable or sabotage care delivery.

This episode is perfect for health system executives, CMIOs, perioperative leaders, and anyone tired of hearing that "we tried AI in a pilot and it didn't work." The orchestration layer is what actually makes it work.

Links from the show:

Connect with Dr. Pete Stetson on LinkedIn

Check out DocBuddy's Op Note Solution

Follow DocBuddy on LinkedIn

Healthcare organizations want AI. Everyone does. But there's a problem: they're waiting for a guarantee that's never coming.

Host Erik sits down with Marten den Haring, Ph.D., MSc, CEO of Lirio, to address the elephant in the room. Health systems are showing up to conferences asking, "What AI product should we buy?" when they should be asking, "What problem are we actually trying to solve?" That's not a subtle difference - it's the difference between transformation and a new expense on the P&L.

This episode is perfect for health system executives, CIOs, innovation officers, and anyone tired of vendor pitches that promise ROI they can't actually guarantee.

Links from the show:

Lirio.

Connect with Marten on LinkedIn.

Check out DocBuddy Op Note.

Follow DocBuddy on LinkedIn.

In this episode of the DocBuddy Journal, host Erik Sunset digs into a new real-world case study showing what happened when DocBuddy Op Note rolled out across all 12 sites. Every center improved. Every center landed between 1.66 and 2.82 days to bill. The network average dropped from 9.31 days down to 2.21 — a 76% reduction.

Erik explains why the transcription step is the hidden source of variability in ASC billing performance, what it means to make a network predictable rather than just fast, and why the business office manager at this network specifically called out physician satisfaction as an unexpected bonus. The full case study is live at docbuddy.com, and the numbers speak for themselves.

Links from the show:

See the case study here.

Check out DocBuddy Op Note.

Connect with DocBuddy on LinkedIn.

Host Erik Sunset sits down with Marc Ryan, Strategic Advisor and GM at MediSolv and author of The Healthcare Labyrinth, to break down a serious, bipartisan healthcare reform proposal that's actually achievable.

Links from the show:

https://www.healthcarelabyrinth.com/

https://lilacsoftware.com/

https://go.medisolv.com/medisolv-here-conference-2025?utm_term=&utm_campaign=QualityIQ+Risk+Assessment&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=8432151558&hsa_cam=23680795648&hsa_grp=&hsa_ad=&hsa_src=x&hsa_tgt=&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23676178316&gbraid=0AAAAAp1briP0rChhxHLazlvDwYxMFj4Qf&gclid=CjwKCAjwyabTBhBFEiwAM3mNUD8cHeuMLvp43S5TCAS2jzHKm_i9s_WaOZPsHAvNR-17egPic3sI9RoC918QAvD_BwE

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-s-ryan-%F0%9F%87%BA%F0%9F%87%A6-1a99529/

https://docbuddy.com/solutions/op-note/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/docbuddy/?viewAsMember=true

Host Erik talks with Dr. Angela Sturm, a facial plastic surgeon based in Houston, about a kind of burnout the surveys don't capture. It's not bad EHRs or staffing shortages—though those matter. It's something quieter and more corrosive: the erosion of autonomy. Dr. Sturm calls it moral injury, and she's seen it from both sides—inside large health systems and now running her own practice.

In this conversation, Dr. Sturm shares how she's built a practice and a life where boundaries makes her better at surgery. She also shares a refreshing perspective about AI adoption in medicine (she's a Claude and Cowork user), the peptide rush that mirrors the AI rush, and why physicians have to be the guardrail when patients want something just because it's possible.

Dr. Sturm also shared her perspective on using DocBuddy Op Note and how instant operative reports solved problems that transcription never could.

Links from the show:

Listen to Dr. Sturm's podcast.

Check out Dr. Sturm's website.

Dr. Sturm on Instagram.

Dr. Sturm on TikTok.

Check out DocBuddy Op Note.

Connect with DocBuddy on LinkedIn.

The numbers are in, and for once in American healthcare, some of them are good. Host Erik Sunset breaks down the KLAS Research Arch Collaborative Clinician EHR Experience 2026 report — 92 health systems, 121,000 clinicians, one year of data — and what it reveals about where the industry is winning, where it's still falling short, and what's actually driving the gap.

Most clinicians report a moderate to strong EHR experience, but the divide between physicians and nurses is striking: 22% of physician groups reached the top satisfaction tier compared to just 12% of nurses. The standout finding for physicians? Ambient AI is delivering, and the data backs it up.

Erik also covers what's still broken — training, governance, vendor relationships, and the lowest-scoring category in the entire industry: external data integration. If you work in healthcare and have an opinion about the EHR, this episode is required listening.

Links from the show:

KLAS Article.

Check out DocBuddy's Op Note.

Connect with us on LinkedIn.

Alex Fernandez, CEO of Synergy Orthopedic Specialists and a 30-year veteran of physician practice management, joins Erik Sunset and The DocBuddy Journal to talk about what actually makes or breaks a physician group integration — and it's not always the financials.

From private equity-backed rollups to independent practice mergers, Alex has seen what happens when acquired groups are left to run as-is under their old name and culture, and why that seemingly respectful choice creates permanent misalignment that never fully resolves.

He and host Erik Sunset dig into the importance of early honest conversations, what true integration looks like beyond combining back-office functions, and why the "Burger King problem" — every physician wanting it their own way — is one of the hardest things to manage in a growing platform.

The conversation also covers brand equity during transitions, the looming physician shortage, and how AI is helping independent practices do more with less as reimbursements stagnate and costs keep climbing.

Links from the show:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/docbuddy/?viewAsMember=true

https://docbuddy.com/solutions/op-note/

https://synergysmg.com/

https://sportsfellows.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexfernandezmba/

The average American physician is now walking away from medicine at 48 years old. Not retiring. Not transitioning to leadership. Walking away entirely—nine years before the system expected them to. And the number one reason they cite? Not pay. Not hours. Paperwork. This isn't a distant crisis. It's already here, and the healthcare establishment isn't talking about it the way they should. 

Host, Erik Sunset, digs into an explosive AMA study revealing the true cost of administrative burden in medicine. When researchers surveyed over 500 physicians who had already left clinical practice, nearly 45% cited administrative burden as the primary reason. Another 44.5% said the work had become too stressful—code for the system had ground them down.

This is a must-listen for health system executives, practice leaders, and anyone in healthcare who recognizes that measuring satisfaction surveys after physicians leave is too late. The solutions aren't mysterious—they just require institutions to prioritize physician engagement the way they prioritize financial metrics.

The doctors we're losing now aren't coming back. And the patients who will need them in 5-10 years don't yet know what they're going to be missing.

Links from the show:

https://www.beckersasc.com/leadership/whats-pushing-physicians-out-of-practice-9-years-early/

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/hospital-physician-relationships/physician-specialties-ranked-by-greatest-shortages-in-2038/

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/hospital-physician-relationships/physician-specialties-ranked-by-greatest-shortages-in-2038/

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/hospital-physician-relationships/physicians-with-the-highest-attrition-rates-study/

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/10-healthcare-workforce-challenges-defining-2026/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/docbuddy/?viewAsMember=true

https://docbuddy.com/solutions/op-note/

In this episode, Erik breaks down what this certification actually means, why it matters, and what it signals about the maturity of AI in healthcare. This isn't about slowing innovation—it's about validating before deploying.

Eighty-one percent of physicians are now using AI in clinical practice—up from just 38% in 2023. That's not gradual adoption. That's a full-out sprint. But here's the problem: adoption has vastly outpaced oversight, and healthcare cannot afford to learn that lesson the hard way.

On June 1st, 2026, the Joint Commission—the nation's oldest and largest healthcare accreditation body evaluating over 23,000 healthcare organizations—launched the Responsible Use of AI in Healthcare (RUAIH) certification. And it's one of the most significant announcements in healthcare AI in quite a while.

Whether you're a health system deploying AI tools, a clinician using them daily, or an administrator responsible for governance, this framework defines what thoughtfully deployed AI actually looks like—and why your organization should care.

Links from the show:

• Check out DocBuddy's Op Note solution.
• Connect with DocBuddy on LinkedIn.
• https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/06/01/3304442/0/en/joint-commission-releases-first-of-its-kind-exclusively-designed-for-healthcare-organizations-voluntary-responsible-use-of-ai-in-healthcare-certification.html
• https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/joint-commission-intros-new-voluntary-ai-responsibility-certification
• https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/joint-commission-launches-voluntary-ai-certification-program-healthcare
• https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/joint-commission-launches-certification-for-responsible-healthcare-ai-use/