From Pajama Charting to Month-Long Vacations: Practice Management Software That Actually Understands Healthcare Featuring Damien Adler, EP 259
Running a healthcare practice was supposed to mean doing the work you trained for. But somewhere between the scheduling, the invoicing, the charting, and the follow-ups, it started meaning something else entirely. In this episode of The Thriving Practice Podcast, Tracy Cherpeski sits down with Damien Adler — co-founder of Zanda Health and a practicing psychologist — to talk about how the right practice management software can give independent practice owners their time, their energy, and honestly, their lives back.
Damien and his wife built their psychology practice from the ground up, scaled it over 14 years, and eventually sold it — all while taking month-long vacations to Europe. The secret? The system ran the practice. That insight is what eventually became Zanda Health, a practice management platform designed to reduce administrative burden, automate the friction out of patient journeys, and make it genuinely enjoyable to run a private practice.
Whether you're a solo practitioner drowning in pajama charting, a growing group practice trying to attract and retain the best clinicians, or a practice owner who can't remember the last time you left work at work — this conversation is full of practical, been-there wisdom from someone who actually lived it.
Key Takeaways
Administrative burden isn't just an inconvenience — it's a burnout accelerator. Practice owners who don't build systems to handle scheduling, invoicing, and documentation end up working evenings and weekends by default.
The system should run the practice. When the right automations are in place, practitioners can step away, take real vacations, and come back to a practice that didn't implode.
Patient experience is shaped more by the surrounding environment than the clinical care itself. Simple, thoughtful touches — pre-visit directions, beverage preferences, fresh flowers — have an outsized impact on satisfaction and retention.
AI in healthcare doesn't have to be scary. Zanda Health's approach — compliance-first, secure, encrypted, practitioner-controlled — is a model for how AI tools can save hours of documentation time without compromising patient privacy.
Start small. You don't have to overhaul everything at once. One automation, one friction point fixed, makes a difference — and those changes compound.
Q&A
What are the top administrative tasks draining private practice owners?
According to Damien, the big three are scheduling and appointment management (making sure patients actually show up), invoicing and financial flow, and documentation — notes, letters, and referral communication. These are where the hours go, and where automation has the most immediate impact.
How much time do practice owners spend on admin tasks?
Tracy's research with practice owners shows that most are spending 30–35% of their time on administrative work — while the ones who really have it dialed in are closer to 10%. That gap is the opportunity.
How does Zanda Health handle AI safely in a healthcare context?
Before writing a single line of AI code, Zanda brought in their data protection and security officers to build a compliance and ethics framework first. Their AI features — session transcription, automated charting, patient insights — run in a separate, encrypted environment. The AI company has no visibility into patient data. Everything stays in Zanda.
Can a small or solo practice actually benefit from practice management software?
Absolutely — and the earlier, the better. As Damien notes, administrative complexity doesn't grow linearly with practice size. Even solo practitioners benefit from automation that handles appointment reminders, waitlist management, and financial follow-up, freeing them to focus on patient care without the after-hours catch-up.
Episode Highlights
Damien's origin story: from psychologist in private practice to co-founder of a global practice management platform
Why admin burden doesn't just grow — it compounds — as a practice scales
The simple pre-visit automation that gets patients to appointments on time and in a better headspace
Why patients rate their experience based on surroundings, not clinical care — and what that means for practice owners
The hospitality mindset: fresh flowers, beverage preferences, and what a bowl of mints has to do with patient retention
How Zanda's AI transcription and charting works — and the compliance-first process that built it
Why practitioners who can't take a real vacation have accidentally created the worst job they've ever had
Damien's one piece of parting advice: start small, let it accumulate
Memorable Quotes
"The system ran the practice. And we were able to sort of step back a lot from the clinical work over time — take vacations — and the practice would operate." — Damien Adler
"Either paperwork and admin will eat you, or you can eat the admin. You just make sure you come out ahead." — Damien Adler
"A well-run practice means you've got the right people doing the right things." — Damien Adler
"The more you can outsource those parts of your brain activity into a system, the more your brain goes: the system's got it. I don't need to think about it." — Damien Adler
Damien Adler built what a lot of practice owners wish existed: a tool that actually understands the practitioner experience, because it was built by one. If this episode made you think differently about how your practice runs — or doesn't run without you — that's exactly the inflection point worth paying attention to. Explore Zanda Health at Zandahealth.com/thrivingpracticepod, and grab their free e-book, The 9 Secrets of Successful Health Practices, linked in the show notes. And when you're ready to go deeper on building a practice that works for you, visit thrivingpracticecommunity.com.
Guest Bio:
Damien Adler is a registered psychologist, practice owner, and co-founder of Zanda, an all-in-one practice management platform used by thousands of health practices across Australia, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, the US, and beyond. He spent 15 years building and running Mind Life Clinic, a large private psychology practice in Central Victoria — so he knows firsthand how administrative complexity can quietly compete with a clinician's original purpose.
That experience led him and his brother Paul to co-found Zanda (formerly Power Diary), now one of the most widely used practice management systems in the Allied Health space. Damien brings both the clinician's perspective and the operator's eye to conversations about sustainable practice-building, smart systems, and using technology in ways that actually serve practitioners and their clients.
Resource Mentioned: “The 9 Secrets of Successful Health Practices” http://zandahealth.com/ThrivingPracticePod
Find Damien:
Website: ZandaHealth.com
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