Congress has already granted the FDA flexibility in evaluating therapies for rare diseases, including the use of real-world evidence and natural history data when traditional large-scale trials are not feasible. The question before the FDA now is not if those tools can be applied – they can – but if the agency has the courage to use them before more patients lose their autonomy, and ultimately, their lives, to rare disease.
General-purpose LLMs have meaningful value in healthcare - they can support education, documentation and research - as well as lower barriers to knowledge and help improve communication. But acting as a clinical assistant embedded in care delivery requires more - it needs longitudinal EHR grounding, explicit encoding of clinical guidelines, transparent and traceable reasoning and the ability to operate securely at a population scale.
Arbiter’s Anjali Jameson on hospital and payer alignment.
The way we measure ALS progression is failing patients. We are entering a new era of ALS therapeutics but still relying on the same blunt instruments of measurement.
From Pentagon contracts to patient care, the AI leader's policy shifts matter.
If leading hospitals are using these AI tools, and the companies mention HIPAA compliance on their websites, are the consumer AI health tools also regulated by HIPAA? Do consumers share a similar relationship with these companies as healthcare organizations do?
The settlement demonstrates that enforcement risk is real and substantial, but it also highlights an opportunity. Medicare Advantage oversight does not require years of new rulemaking or experimental pilots because the technical capability to validate documentation at scale already exists and can be deployed today.
Artera President Tom McIntyre talks about the practical application of AI in healthcare.
Technology alone won’t solve prior authorization. But refusing to adopt it guarantees the status quo: a system where insurers operate at machine speed, providers operate at human speed, and patients pay the price in delayed care.
The challenge for policymakers is balance: encouraging rigor without unintentionally weakening a program that now serves the majority of Medicare beneficiaries. Thoughtful rate calibration can determine whether this transition strengthens the program or strains it unnecessarily.
At a time when 98 million prescriptions are abandoned due to cost surprises, it’s critical that all four categories of prescription drug prices are available so consumers can determine how to obtain needed medications at the lowest cost.
We have to cover medical nutrition therapy for those who need it most, including Medicare beneficiaries. Almost all commercial payers are already doing this - the government needs to catch up.
Zelis highlights how employers, payers, and consumers are integrating digital tools to manage healthcare costs.
Executives who think ahead and ask the right questions – monthly – can make a real difference in healthcare costs.
A unified workflow for all referrals, resulting in fewer clicks and less confusion, means provider matching can be conducted based on specialty, location, insurance, and real-time availability, for an easier track to the right provider, not just any provider.
It reduced cravings, dulled alcohol’s “buzz,” and carried no risk of addiction. By every measure, naltrexone should have immediately become a major triumph. Instead, it flopped because the institutions charged with treating addiction refused to use it. Now considered a gold standard, it survived because patients and communities kept it alive.
The decision to eliminate nursing and PA degrees from ‘professional degree’ status isn’t just a financial policy choice; it’s a workforce policy choice. And, unfortunately, it’s moving in the wrong direction at the worst possible time.
Providers like to think they built their brand in the exam room, in the skill of surgeons or the bedside manner of nurses. And that’s definitely part of it. But your brand is also being built (or destroyed) in the billing office, on the prior-auth line, and the moment patients open their statements.