Done-for-you or DIY? How to choose the right healthcare automation model.
The market split into two models a few years ago, and most practices do not realise they are choosing between them until after they have signed something. Below is the honest, no-name-calling breakdown — what each model is, where each one is the right fit, and how to tell which one is right for your practice.
We name no competitors. We are obviously in one of the two categories (done-for-you). The point of this page is that the buyer can tell which model fits before any sales conversation.
What each one actually is, in plain English.
Done-for-you
A small team scopes one workflow against one metric, builds it on your existing stack, runs it for you, and reports against the baseline. You see results — not a tool.
- Pick the workflow that costs the most time
- Give us EHR access for a discovery call
- Review the one-page scope
- Receive monthly outcome reports
- Map the real workflow
- Build, integrate, and deploy
- Operate the automation
- Monitor, fix, improve, report
DIY platform
A platform vendor sells seats. Your team builds workflows inside their no-code interface, learns the abstractions, debugs the edge cases, and maintains everything forever. You see a tool — outcomes depend on your team using it well.
- Hire or train a workflow builder
- Map workflows to the platform’s abstractions
- Build, test, and own each automation
- Maintain integrations as systems change
- Provide the platform
- Provide documentation and support tickets
- Sell additional seats as you grow
The honest comparison.
Five categories, fifteen-plus dimensions. Where one model is clearly stronger, we say so plainly — including the categories where DIY wins.
| Criterion | Done-for-you | DIY platform |
|---|---|---|
| Who builds the workflow | AUOGE engineers | Your team, inside the platform’s tools |
| Time to first automation live | 2–4 weeks | 2–6 months (typical, after staff training) |
| Required technical skill on your side | None | At least one technical owner per practice |
| Onboarding burden | Discovery call + EHR access | Multi-week onboarding + ongoing training cohorts |
| Criterion | Done-for-you | DIY platform |
|---|---|---|
| Who operates the automation day-to-day | AUOGE | Your front desk + your workflow owner |
| When it breaks at 2am | Named engineer · phone + Slack | Ticket portal · 24–48 hr SLA |
| Maintenance as your EHR / payers / labs change | Included | You re-map the workflow |
| Outcome reporting against your baseline | 30 / 60 / 90 day reviews, written | You build the dashboards |
| Criterion | Done-for-you | DIY platform |
|---|---|---|
| BAA coverage | Signed with AUOGE + every sub-processor | Signed with platform vendor only — sub-processors are your map |
| HIPAA control mapping | We share the document under NDA before contract | You map controls to the platform yourself |
| Audit log retention | 6+ years, queryable, exportable | Per platform — varies, often shorter |
| Data residency control | US-only by default, in writing | Per platform terms |
| Criterion | Done-for-you | DIY platform |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Fixed per scope | Per-seat, per-month, scales with team |
| Cost of adding more staff | No change | Each seat adds recurring cost |
| Cost of a second workflow | New scope, only if first one earned it | Same platform, but you build it |
| Hidden cost: staff hours to build & maintain | None | Often the largest line item, rarely budgeted |
| Criterion | Done-for-you | DIY platform |
|---|---|---|
| Lock-in | Your data, your schemas, exportable on day one | Workflows live inside the platform’s abstractions |
| If we (or the vendor) disappear | You keep the artifacts and the integration code | Workflows go away with the platform |
| Customization ceiling | Bespoke — bounded only by EHR APIs | Bounded by what the platform’s builder supports |
Done-for-you is not always the right answer.
We will tell you on the discovery call if DIY is a better fit than us. Honesty is a moat in healthcare; a forced sale is a refund waiting to happen.
- You have a dedicated technical operator (RevOps, IT lead, or workflow-savvy practice admin) with 10+ hours a week to give to this.
- You have a large enough team that per-seat pricing still pencils out.
- Your workflows are highly idiosyncratic and you want full hands-on control over every branch and edge case.
- You see automation as a team capability you want to grow internally over years, not buy as an outcome this quarter.
If two or more of the above describe your practice, a platform is probably the right call and we will tell you so.
When AUOGE is the right fit.
The 1–25 provider US practice, without a dedicated technical operator, that wants a specific number moved on a specific timeline. That is the customer this entire company is built around.
- You are a 1–25 provider practice without a full-time engineer or RevOps lead on staff.
- You want a specific number to move — fewer no-shows, less admin time, faster reimbursement — and you want it moved in 4–12 weeks, not 4–12 months.
- You would rather pay for an outcome than for seats.
- You want the people closest to your patients (your front desk, your clinicians) doing patient work, not configuring tools.
- You want HIPAA, BAA, and sub-processor coverage handed to you, not assembled by you.
Three questions that decide it.
Most practices already know which model fits — they just have not asked themselves the questions in order yet. These are the three. Answer them honestly and the model picks itself.
Do you have a technical operator with weekly hours to give?
If yes — DIY is on the table. If no — done-for-you is the only honest choice. "We will hire someone" is a 6-month delay; it is not an answer.
Are you buying a tool or buying an outcome?
A tool sits idle when nobody owns it. An outcome has a number attached and a date by which it has to move. If you do not have an internal champion, do not buy a tool.
How quickly does this need to pay back?
DIY platforms typically take 4–8 months to pay back, factoring in staff time. Done-for-you typically pays back inside 4–12 weeks, because someone else absorbs the build cost.
Many practices end up running both, on purpose.
A common pattern: a DIY platform handles the simple repeating workflows (forms, calendar holds, basic triage routing) where your team has tribal knowledge no vendor can replicate. A done-for-you partner handles the gnarly cross-system work — EHR ↔ lab ↔ billing reconciliation, denial management, deep clinical-data pipelines — where a single specialist running it end-to-end is cheaper and faster than your team trying to assemble it inside a platform.
We are entirely happy to be the second half of that picture. If you already run a workflow platform internally and want a partner to absorb the work it was never going to be good at, that is a normal first call for us.
30 minutes. We'll tell you which model fits you — even if it is not us.
We have turned away practices that were better served by a platform; we will do the same for you if that is the honest call. The discovery call is free, and the answer comes out the other side either way.