Newswatch: AI for Medicare folk, AI uncertainty at the FDA, generative ghosts, more

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

Energy is building behind the Health Tech Investment Act. That’s the recently posted U.S. Senate bill that would expand and expedite reimbursements for clinicians who use AI-equipped and FDA-approved medical devices to diagnose and/or treat Medicare patients. This week the bill’s authors, Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), are underscoring the proposed legislation’s four main aims. These are to 1) formalize a payment pathway for such devices, 2) make sure older patients get access to them, 3) assure manufactures and providers they can be confident investing in medical AI, and 4) supply resources to help providers meet (still-developing) standards of care. If it becomes the law of the land, the Health Tech Investment Act will assign a code in the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (HOPPS) for a minimum of five years “so that adequate data regarding delivery and service costs is acquired before assignment of a permanent payment code,” Henrich and Rounds state in this week’s update. The bipartisan tag team, co-chairs of the Senate AI Caucus, also announce their bill has received endorsements from AdvaMed, the Alliance for Aging Research, the Brem Foundation to Defeat Breast Cancer, the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, the National Health Council, the National Psoriasis Foundation, Patients Rising and Right Scan Right Time. The concise bill, just six pages long, is here.
Meanwhile makers of AI-enabled medical devices are feeling hamstrung by regulatory uncertainty. The locus of their concern is what’s going on at the FDA in the wake of the Trump administration’s pausing of guidance documents. The resulting ambiguity has some recalculating their risk tolerance. “The strategic plans we all have within our companies, and the project priorities, and the roadmaps—they remain unchanged,” Robert Cohen, president of several tech-heavy product lines at Stryker and a board member with the industry group AdvaMed, assures stakeholders. Speaking at an AdvaMed press conference April 22 covered by Regulatory Focus, Cohen suggests healthtech companies ask themselves if they’re flexible enough to weather whatever truly disruptive policies may come. He surely spoke for many when he said: “It’s not necessarily change, but we are sitting here with some healthy anxiety.”
AI is producing healthcare financial advisors for patients. And it’s drawing the new crop from hospital administrators who used to work in revenue cycle management. No numbers are there to put data behind the observation, but one expert well-positioned to go by anecdotal evidence—as well as supply-and-demand dynamics in the healthcare workforce—believes he’s seeing such a shift. The trend is happening, Richard Gundling, a senior VP at the Healthcare Financial Management Association, tells Newsweek, because AI is making RCM people redundant with algorithms. But don’t worry. The shift is good for patients as well as their new monetary consultants. The redeployed pros “can have a more direct impact on patients by meeting with them to discuss their insurance benefits, copays and options for financial assistance if necessary,” Gundling says. There may be another unexpected benefit: prompting providers to work harder at transparency with patients and communications with payers. “AI is great to make sure everything [in the claims process] is completed quickly,” Gundling says. “But maybe it’s also a chance to step back and say, ‘Hey, instead of just speeding up a complex transaction, maybe it doesn’t have to be this complex in the first place.’” We can only hope.
A health economist and entrepreneur has a healthcare AI testimonial to share. And the story has nothing to do with his professional expertise. It started about a year and a half ago when a relative received complicated biopsy results just ahead of a weekend. The loved one had comorbidities, the most troublesome of which was a rare form of multiple myeloma. An appropriate specialist would be hard to reach before Monday. The health economist turned to AI. Things turned out OK. Fast-forward to the present. “Today, my relative’s treatment continues to benefit from AI,” Michael Botta, PhD, relays in the Washington Post. “When we face uncertainty between appointments or need to interpret new test results, AI provides immediate, evidence-based guidance that complements our medical team’s expertise.” Along with the first-person account, the commentary has some worthwhile thoughts about healthcare AI for patients and providers alike. Check it out.
In similar fashion, a dad turned to AI when his son needed more help than any human doctor seemed able to offer. In this case the AI aficionado, Julián Isla, was very familiar with the technology—he’s a software engineer for Microsoft. As it turned out, he had worries over a stricken child in common with Microsoft’s chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella, who has a son with cerebral palsy. The two men met and bonded over their shared parental challenges and tech-based hopes. After the Isla family received a diagnosis for young Sergio, the rare Dravet syndrome, the dad “quickly became one of Spain’s main advocates for rare diseases, championing better understanding and fighting for improved treatments for these little-known illnesses,” a Microsoft news item recounts. “As the years passed, Julián realized that computing could be a perfect ally, given that diagnosing rare diseases requires gathering and analyzing vast amounts of data and symptom information. ‘AI is a facilitator,’” Julián says. The piece features some heartwarming photos of the Isla family. See it here.
Can you name a few healthcare AI companies that seem to be setting the pace for the rest of the field? Market research firm and publisher The Healthcare Technology Report can name even more. And does just that in its April 22 list of the vendors it sees as the top 25 in the category. All such exercises are by their nature subjective, of course. Still, it’s no idle thing to consider the businesses that THTR deems deserving of recognition for “empowering the healthcare industry and freeing up resources to shift focus to what matters most: patients.”
It’s up for debate whether this is a healthy use of healthcare-adjacent AI. Digital twins of living humans—or once-living humans—have been around for a while. They can offer grieving survivors a way to interact with loved ones postmortem. But advanced AI has upped the game to where it may strike some as, for lack of a better word, ill-considered. Researchers are calling the latest iterations “generative ghosts.” Some of these AI apparitions plumb the depths of the Uncanny Valley. Others go beyond just looking and sounding like their deceased twins: They also generate new conversations with references to current events in the news and real-time happenings at home. Where might this go next? “In the future, a generative ghost might be used to weigh in on a contested will and other property and inheritance matters, especially when written documents leave room for doubt,” Pymnts comments in its solid coverage of the trend. “As a result, we may soon see AI clauses become standard in estate planning documents, much like healthcare proxies or advance directives are today.” Read aloud by the deceased, mind you. So we have that to look forward to. Or to dread.
Recent research in the news:
- University at Buffalo: An AI tool grounded in evidence-based medicine outperformed other AI tools—and most doctors—on USMLE exams
- University of Texas at El Paso launches AI think tank to address regional challenges
- Princeton: Material? Robot? It’s a metabot
- Penn State: Microscopic robots may shape the future of health, tech and the environment
Funding news of note:
From AIin.Healthcare’s news partners:
- Radiology Business: Feds should take page from EHRs, creating ‘Meaningful Use’ program to spur AI adoption, Rad Partners leaders say

Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.

Newswatch: AI for Medicare folk, AI uncertainty at the FDA, generative ghosts, more

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