Clarion

What do they actually do

Clarion provides AI agents that handle patient communications for clinics over phone, SMS, and web. The agents answer inbound calls 24/7 and complete routine tasks like scheduling, rescheduling/cancellations, prescription refills, basic billing questions and payments, reminders, and referral scheduling. When an issue is complex, the agent hands it off to staff with a concise log and next‑step context so a human can finish the task later (Clarion site, use case).

Clinics keep their existing phone numbers and systems. Clarion connects via call forwarding and integrates with practice management/EHR systems through a REST API and standard interfaces (HL7/FHIR) to verify identity, read/write appointments, and surface context during calls. Staff can review conversations and adjust behavior through QA tooling. The company advertises outcome‑based pricing (pay when the AI resolves a request) and says patient data is not used to train models for other customers (Clarion site).

Deployments typically go live in about 1–2 weeks with a dedicated onboarding team, and the product currently supports English and Spanish. Public materials indicate they serve “dozens” of customers across virtual care companies, outpatient systems, and at least one large insurer, handling tens of thousands of patients monthly (Clarion site, YC profile).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Small-to-mid primary care clinics and single-location practices: They miss a meaningful share of inbound calls and spend staff time on routine scheduling, refills, and billing questions; they need reliable 24/7 coverage and fewer manual handoffs (Clarion, YC).
• High-volume virtual care and telehealth providers: They receive large volumes of calls/messages and need consistent, automated handling of bookings, reschedules, and simple clinical requests to scale without adding headcount (Clarion, YC).
• Multi-site outpatient health systems and medical groups: They need standardized patient communications across locations, reduced no‑shows, and clear audit trails/QA for compliance and operational metrics (Clarion features).
• Health insurers and large payers: They manage high call volumes for authorizations, referrals, and member questions and want to cut call center costs while improving first‑contact resolution and documentation (YC/company, Clarion use cases).
• Referral‑heavy or specialty clinics (e.g., behavioral health, imaging): They require reliable referral coordination, benefits verification, and follow‑ups but often lack staff bandwidth to handle complex scheduling and payer checks (Clarion workflows).

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Run founder‑led pilots with local single‑location clinics and specialties. Use call forwarding and basic EHR hookups to go live in 1–2 weeks, and price on pay‑for‑resolved‑requests so clinics see savings before committing (Clarion site).
• First 50: Turn early wins into repeatable playbooks: standardize onboarding/QA templates, publish brief case studies on reduced missed calls and staff load, and do targeted outbound to virtual care and high‑volume clinics that match those profiles, leaning on EHR/FHIR integrations (YC, Clarion).
• First 100: Build channels and an enterprise motion: partner with phone‑system/EHR vendors, run payer pilots focused on referrals/authorizations, and hire small CS/sales ops to manage multi‑site rollouts and SLAs for reliable scaling (Clarion, YC).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Near‑term, the U.S. outpatient answering/overflow communications market Clarion targets is roughly $1–2B annually. Adjacent segments like global medical answering services, clinical communication platforms, and healthcare BPO/contact centers add multi‑billion upside over time (Verified Market Research, Grand View Research, IMARC).

Bottom-up calculation:

~395,000 U.S. physician group practices × ~$3,300–$4,560/year typical answering‑service spend ≈ $1.30–$1.80B/year near‑term SAM (Definitive Healthcare, pricing surveys, guide).

Assumptions:

• A large share of practices outsource or are willing to pay amounts comparable to current answering‑service spend; Clarion’s outcome‑based pricing aligns to that range.
• Clarion can technically serve most of the 395k practices with existing integrations and light variation by EHR/phone setup.
• Hospitals, health systems, and payers are priced via separate enterprise contracts and are excluded from the core $1.3–$1.8B SAM.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Hyro: HIPAA‑compliant conversational AI for health systems (voice + chat) focused on scheduling, prescription questions, and digital front‑door automation; overlaps on inbound patient automation for enterprise customers.
• Hello Patient: AI assistant for clinics and urgent care that handles voice, text, and chat to replace manual call‑center work; competes on 24/7 patient handling and multichannel continuity.
• Infinitus: Agentic voice AI to automate high‑volume calls between providers, patients, and payors with strong safety/audit posture; overlaps on phone‑answering and payer/provider workflows.
• Relatient (Dash): Voice AI agents and patient engagement tools for ambulatory practices; competes on intelligent scheduling and call automation within a broader engagement suite.
• Luma Health: Patient engagement platform with AI‑enabled voice, hosted telephony, and EHR integrations; overlaps on appointment automation but packaged within a wider outreach and intake product.