AI in Healthcare: Why the boring stuff is the most exciting (for now)

Providers as early adopters of AI

The healthcare ecosystem consists of three major constituents: the providers delivering medical services, the payers financing those services, and the life sciences companies producing drugs, medical devices, and related technologies. Of those, providers and payers execute millions of data-intensive administrative workflows daily. Staffing shortages and regulatory complexity have increased the pressure on these high-volume processes. AI large language models (LLMs) are well-suited to automate these processes, reducing administrative cost and burden.

Providers, in particular, face significant challenges. Rising claim denials, shrinking margins, and the growing share of financial responsibility borne by patients have made operational efficiency critical. Despite the promise of electronic health records (EHRs), providers in outpatient settings spend nearly six hours on EHRs for every eight hours of patient care,⁴ which contributes to, rather than reduces, physician burnout. Providers are devoting hours completing patient charts, requesting prior authorizations, following up on tests, logging results, and completing tasks in the EHR. AI-based applications can help recapture the ~40% of clinician time spent on these administrative tasks.

AI delivers value in provider administration