PwC Report: AI Making Medical Bills Higher

(fortune.com)

79 points | by karakoram a day ago ago

20 comments

  • nine_k 21 hours ago ago

    In short: AI-based tools tend to "upcode" cases and bill for more serious conditions, and more expensive treatment.

    (This is not about AI costing too much.)

    • spwa4 11 minutes ago ago

      AI does exactly what the owner (like employer) wants it to do.

      Clearly the fault is with AI. That's the only possible explanation.

    • BobbyTables2 20 hours ago ago

      Seems to me shady providers were already highly skilled in upcoming without AI or any other technology…

      • add-sub-mul-div 20 hours ago ago

        And we were able to able to kill people with projectiles before we had guns but ffs we don't use that to shut down every conversation about what guns can do.

    • happycube 21 hours ago ago

      Gee. I wonder why that would be allowed to happen.

  • fnordpiglet 20 hours ago ago

    No technology will make it cheaper for YOU, just improve margins for the chain of fleecing between provider and insurance. Demand for healthcare is inelastic like water or air, so they can charge whatever they want and you pay or die. AI will of course amplify your costs while improving their profits.

    • spwa4 10 minutes ago ago

      What? This is also totally not true. Look at the results in treatment outcomes even over the past 10 years. You are getting more and better healthcare, for more money.

      More money sucks, but it's not like there's nothing in return.

    • lifestyleguru 17 hours ago ago

      What's terrifying is that European countries which had a chance to create universal healthcare during last decades, instead aimlessly drift toward "American model". When medical professionals see the money involved in America the temptation is simply too big. They basically monetize pain and fear of dying, no professional medical treatment is offered. Greed is such a universal and strong feeling.

  • phainopepla2 20 hours ago ago

    Insurance companies spend a lot of time on bill review and disputes over coding. They will develop an adversarial AI process to counteract this (assuming they haven't already). Race to the bottom and we all win

  • karakoram a day ago ago
  • sharts 19 hours ago ago

    Why is medical even a for profit system?

    • Alifatisk 4 hours ago ago

      I want to say because the people in the US vote for it, but I am not sure that is the actual case.

  • HtmlProgrammer 18 hours ago ago

    Just wait until we deploy the AI to optimise healthcare so that people die right at retirement age to maximise tax extraction and minimise healthcare usage

  • baliex a day ago ago

    This reads like slop.

    The four emboldened headings that make up the whole article sound like they’re straight outta chatgpt:

    * what happened

    * the devil is in the billing details

    * the big but

    * bottom line

    I’m not sure that I’ve ever read a Fortune article before so maybe this is just their style. But I doubt it.

    • nine_k 21 hours ago ago

      Peruse tvtropes.com enough, and you will realize that nothing is ever original, everything follows this or that long-established pattern, and complaining about that is another old trope.

      More seriously, I like the fact that articles follow a particular scheme: the problem, exposition, conflict, contemplation. Much like a scientific article follows a similar established pattern.

      And emotionally now: complaints about slop are often as schematic as the slop.

      • ares623 20 hours ago ago

        > And emotionally now: complaints about slop are often as schematic as the slop.

        ah, the ol' "I'm rubber, you're glue" approach to solving problems. Worked so well for our billionairs and politicians, we should apply it to every interaction in our daily lives.

    • simonw 21 hours ago ago

      This story was republished by Fortune from a partnership with Tech Brew: https://www.techbrew.com/stories/ai-healthcare-bills-increas...

      If you look at other stories by the same author, such as this one https://www.techbrew.com/stories/openai-token-price-wars-ant... - the "TL;DR", "What happened", "Bottom line" format is consistent across their work. It looks to me like a style guide thing, not necessarily something introduced by LLMs.

    • zingababba 21 hours ago ago

      They might have a skill or something that goes from report -> 'fortune article' - it honestly would not surprise me.

  • 13 hours ago ago
    [deleted]
  • dgellow 21 hours ago ago

    [flagged]