Affineon is the sanity-saving superpower every overloaded medical provider deserves

As a CEO and internal medicine NP with a full-blown obsession for ordering every lab under the sun, I pride myself on having the most comprehensive patient snapshots imaginable — even if it means making my own life 10x harder. Why? Because I care that much. (And yes, I’m also a little clinically anal, but it’s part of my charm.)

Now add to that the fact that I own a primary care practice with over 1,600 patients on my panel alone… and wait for it… no nurse, no medical assistant, no office manager. Just me, myself, and my overachieving brain. If you're wondering — yes — I am insane. But like, high-functioning-insane with a solid clinical skill set.

Before Affineon, I spent 4 to 5 hours every Saturday reviewing labs.

Yes — that much. Every. Single. Weekend.

I was hunched over hundreds of lab results, eating cereal with one hand and sorting CBCs with the other, asking myself, “Is this really my life?”

I’d lose at least 2 hours a day, every week, just trying to keep up with the monster I created out of thoroughness. (Spoiler: Yes, I ordered it. No, I don’t regret it.)

Now let me be clear — I am NOT the provider who orders labs just because.

I don’t do it for volume, or to check boxes, or to look busy.

I do it because I listen, I investigate, and I follow clinical hunches — but that does make more work for me.

Then came Affineon. Like a tech angel descending from the cloud (the EHR cloud, that is), it transformed the madness into beautiful, digestible internal notes that actually help me synthesize patient data without a blood pressure spike. The platform gets me — it delivers depth, clarity, and no fluff, exactly how I need it.

They say it saves providers an average of 5 hours a week, but let’s be real — that’s cute. I’m telling you, it saves me WAY more than that.

I live and breathe primary care, and I do it solo — this platform has been a total game changer.

You don’t have to download a new app. It works right inside Athena, exactly where I already live. It writes personalized messages to patients, which I review and approve with a single click.

And it trends labs — which I used to do manually, because yes, I’m a dork and love watching HA1C graphs like it’s a Netflix series.

At an average physical, I’m ordering Vitamin D, CBC, CMP, Lipids, Iodine, a full thyroid panel, A1C, Microalbumin, B12, Folate, an Iron panel — and that’s just my warm-up round.

And that’s before we get into the hormone panels for the endless parade of perimenopausal women rolling through with symptoms like, "I can’t sleep, I cry when someone looks at me sideways, and I suddenly hate my husband."

Yep. You’re in perimenopause, and yes — I’ve got labs for that.

Oh, and don’t forget the autoimmune panels I run just for fun because my dorky internal medicine brain is always trying to solve some diagnostic Rubik’s cube at 11 p.m.

I don’t shy away from the labs. I embrace them. But I used to drown in the aftermath until Affineon came in and said, “Hey… what if we did that part for you?” Game. Changed.

With Affineon, I’ve worked with Claire (shoutout to the queen of customization) to make sure the most pertinent labs are visible in the internal note within Athena — the exact way I think clinically.

I need to know the total cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL at a glance — all right there. Same with HA1c, Liver enzymes, and thyroid numbers — no more opening a full lab panel mid-visit, scrolling like a raccoon through a trash can of numbers. It’s seamless.

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Now let’s talk about the people behind the product — because they’re just as good as the software.

Let me talk about Claire again, because she’s a miracle worker. She doesn’t just “support” you—she basically adopts your practice as her problem and makes sure you succeed. She’s relentless, responsive, and somehow totally cool with my endless list of demands (and I have many).

Whether I’m wearing my CEO hat or drowning in my NP inbox at 10 p.m., Claire shows up and makes sure I’m getting my ROI and my sanity back. Now enter Tom Wettersten — the director of sales—and let me be real: sales directors are usually the worst. You know the type: slick, over-smiley, ready to “value prop” you to death, then ghost you once you sign. Like a bad Tinder date who reels you in, hooks you, and tosses you back into no-man’s-land because, hey, they did their job and they’re off to chase their next “target.” But Tom is not that guy. Tom is cool. Tom is the man. He didn’t sugarcoat anything — in fact, he straight-up said that if the program didn’t do what I needed, he’d take full responsibility. That’s real. That’s rare. And it made all the difference.

The entire Affineon team is stacked with experienced pros who actually understand primary care and what it’s like to be in the trenches with 1,600 patients and no backup. They don’t just throw a product at you and walk away — they walk with you, customize it, and make it fit your practice.

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‍Bottom Line:

• Affineon saves me hours every week (not just 5, let’s be serious)
• Affineon lets me keep ordering labs like a data-driven maniac
• Affineon improves patient care
• Affineon requires no new apps, no new headaches
• Affineon trends labs, personalizes notes, and lives inside Athena like it belongs there
• Affineon most importantly, gave me my life back

Do I still do it all? Yes.

But thanks to Affineon, I do it faster, smarter, and with enough extra time to enjoy my cereal — and maybe even start working out again.

1000/10 would recommend — especially if you're reviewing each individual lab manually in Athena and screaming internally.

I promise: it’s worth the money.

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This post is 100% written by Michaela. Believe it or not, the only edits were for brevity.