ModMed’s MOMENTUM 2026 drew nearly 2,000 attendees to the Gaylord Palms in October. AI was on the main stage. At our booth and in our interview room, the conversation was more practical.
We sat down with Medsender customers, from front office staff to practice CEOs. Salman and I took a seat too. Three themes came up again and again.
1. The unglamorous work is where AI pays off first
Faxes are not going away. When we started Medsender, I was naive enough to think we could get rid of faxing. What we learned is that we could use AI to automate all the pain points around it instead.
Anka Davis, CFO of Aspire Dermatology, put it plainly: “It’s 2026 and faxes are thriving.” Her practice now processes every fax the same way, and she said no referral gets lost. Joe Atzenbeck, CEO of The Clinic for Dermatology & Wellness, called it “the unsexy stuff in medicine,” then added that it is the work every practice has to get right.
For front office teams, the change shows up on day one. Samantha Ganter, Medical Assistant at Alpha Dermatology, said, “That stack of papers on my desk is completely gone.” Her faxes now land in one portal, auto-assigned to the right staff member.
2. Referral speed is revenue speed
Specialty practices live on referrals, and every day a referral waits is a day a patient may book elsewhere. Joe Atzenbeck calls closing the referral loop “one of the most important things in specialty medicine.”
Joe Atzenbeck shared the numbers from his practice. Referrals once took almost seven days to go from received to scheduled, and fewer than 70% were booked. Today they are processed within 48 hours, and closer to 85% are scheduled, sometimes 90% depending on the provider.
Visibility matters too. Anabell Brown, Operations Project & Process Improvement Manager of Piedmont Plastic Surgery & Dermatology, said that when a referral coordinator is out, anyone on the team can pick up exactly where they left off. Anka Davis said her practice absorbed an insurer’s reinstated pre-COVID referral requirements three months into implementation “without even blinking.”
3. AI works best when it makes people more present
The common thread was time handed back to staff. Joe Atzenbeck said AI is not the right tool to replace a human, but it is “the right thing to augment a human so that they can be more present with the patient.”
Laura Jones, CEO of Ozark Dermatology, said her practice reclaimed about 50% of staff hours. Eight to ten employees once monitored the fax application all day. Now four or five check it sporadically. Elizabeth Denholm, part of the Front Office Staff at Salina Ortho, said tasks that took 10 minutes per patient now take 60 seconds, which adds up fast over a week, a month and a year.
We see the same pattern on our side. My co-CEO, Salman Haque, says one of the biggest effects of AI is helping a practice “amplify the amount of time they’re able to deliver to a patient.”
Where to start
We asked practice leaders whether to start now or later, and the answers were short. Anka Davis: “Do it. Don’t overthink it.” Laura Jones: “I would recommend starting the application with Medsender as soon as possible.”
Dora Zaharias, our director of training and implementation, said, “Typical go-live times can be anywhere from two days to two months.” She added, “We offer risk-free trials.” Salman’s advice to skeptics: “Don’t take our word for it, talk to anyone currently using Medsender.”
Every practice handles faxes and referrals a little differently, and not every practice needs Medsender. Walk us through how yours works today. A short conversation will tell us both whether it makes sense to go further.
Frequently Asked Questions
MOMENTUM is ModMed’s annual user conference. The 2026 edition drew nearly 2,000 attendees to the Gaylord Palms in October, with AI as the headline topic on the main stage.
Yes. As Anka Davis, CFO of Aspire Dermatology, put it at MOMENTUM, “it’s 2026 and faxes are thriving.” Rather than trying to eliminate faxing, practices are using AI to automate the painful work around it, so every fax is processed the same way and no referral gets lost.
At The Clinic for Dermatology & Wellness, referrals once took almost seven days to go from received to scheduled, with fewer than 70% booked. Today they are processed within 48 hours, and closer to 85% are scheduled, sometimes 90% depending on the provider.
No. The consensus at MOMENTUM was that AI should augment people so they can be more present with patients. Ozark Dermatology reclaimed about 50% of staff hours: eight to ten employees once monitored the fax application all day, and now four or five check it sporadically.
Go-live with Medsender can happen in as little as two days, and Medsender offers risk-free trials so practices can see results on their own faxes and referrals before committing.