Survey: Practices Want AI Automation, but Data Privacy Is Still the Sticking Point

INDUSTRY TRENDS

Survey: Healthcare Practices Want AI Automation, but Data Privacy Is Still the Sticking Point

A new survey of 285 practice owners, office managers, and front desk staff, including veterinary practices, finds manual data entry eating up hours a day while HIPAA and privacy concerns keep many on the sidelines of AI adoption.

A newly released survey of 285 owners, office managers, and front desk staff across dental, specialty medical, optometry, and veterinary practices offers a data-driven look at where healthcare administration is straining and where practices see automation and AI fitting in. The 2026 State of Healthcare Pulse Survey was conducted and published by Weave, a patient engagement software company, though the findings themselves describe patterns across the broader healthcare and veterinary administrative landscape rather than being specific to any one vendor's tools.

The Administrative Bottleneck, By the Numbers

The survey's clearest finding is that manual, duplicated data entry is the dominant time drain across practices. Eighty percent of respondents said duplicate data entry affects their workflow, and for 47%, that impact is moderate or significant. Sixty-three percent reported spending an hour or more a day on manual data entry, with roughly a third, 32%, spending two hours or more, time that survey organizers characterized as the equivalent of weeks of staff time a year that never touches a patient directly.

That bottleneck appears to be structural rather than a staffing or training issue: 70% of practices reported they are not running an integrated software stack, meaning the same patient information often has to be re-entered manually across multiple disconnected systems.

Where Practices Most Want to Automate

Respondents pointed to a fairly consistent cluster of front-desk tasks as automation priorities: appointment scheduling and confirmations (49%), insurance verification (46%), patient intake and forms (42%), and billing and payment reminders (41%). These are largely administrative, non-clinical functions, which may explain why interest in automating them is broad even among practices still cautious about AI more generally.

Staffing Pressure Is Part of the Picture

The survey also captured a labor market squeeze compounding the administrative load. Sixty-four percent of practices reported staffing shortages at some point in the past 12 months, and 48% said they are dealing with shortages currently. For 24% of respondents, those shortages were severe enough to force reduced patient or appointment volume.

Among practices that adopted automated workflows in 2025, 41% cited improved team productivity and efficiency as a result, and 29% reported reduced staff workload and burnout, suggesting some practices are treating automation as a way to extend existing staff capacity rather than a replacement for hiring.

Interest in AI Is High, but So Is Caution

About 41% of surveyed practices said they have already adopted some AI workflows or that AI is actively transforming their operations, while another 33% said they have considered AI tools but have not yet committed to adopting them.

The survey identifies data privacy as the leading factor holding the undecided group back. HIPAA and data privacy concerns topped the list of risk factors at 60%, ahead of concern about AI producing low-quality work (51%) and regulatory uncertainty (35%). Notably, veterinary practices are not directly bound by HIPAA the way human medical and dental practices are, since HIPAA governs human patient health information, so it is worth noting the survey does not break out whether veterinary respondents' privacy concerns center on client and payment data specifically rather than HIPAA compliance itself.

Practitioners can name exactly what's slowing them down, and it isn't a mystery, it's manual work moving between systems that don't talk to each other, said Marcus Bertilson, Weave's COO and Head of Product, commenting on the survey results. Don't mistake their caution about AI for reluctance. It's a rational response to a market that hasn't yet earned their trust with patient data.

What Practices Reported After Adopting Automation

Among respondents who had operationalized some form of automation in 2025, 61% reported improved patient communications and responsiveness, 41% reported improved team productivity and efficiency, and 39% reported fewer no-shows and last-minute cancellations. As with any self-reported survey data, these figures reflect the experiences and perceptions of respondents who chose to adopt automation, rather than a controlled comparison against practices that did not.

Reading the Findings With Context

It is worth noting the survey was commissioned and published by a company that sells patient engagement and automation software, which is a normal source for this kind of industry data but also a reason to treat the framing, if not necessarily the raw percentages, with the same scrutiny given to any vendor-sponsored research. The survey does not appear to disclose the veterinary-specific sample size within the broader 285 respondents, so it is unclear how many of the findings above reflect veterinary practices specifically versus dental, medical, or optometry respondents. Readers interested in the methodology or full breakdown can consult the published survey directly.

Source: Weave 2026 State of Healthcare Pulse Survey, published Aug. 20, 2026, via Business Wire.