Medical offices may soon use artificial intelligence tools from Amazon to prepare and submit health insurance claims.
The technology services giant says its new package of AI-based support services tools for health care providers is great at listing the procedures provided during a patient visit and the diagnoses, and at attaching the diagnostic and procedure codes used in the billing process.
When procedures use the new AI system, "visits are billing-ready within minutes, enabling the bill to be submitted to the patient's insurance company," according to a blog entry posted by Colleen Aubrey, an Amazon AI executive.
What it means: If the new AI system can do what Amazon says it can, that could reduce providers' administrative costs and speed up the billing process.
Employer health plans could get information about important new trends, such as spikes in pneumonia claims, much more quickly.
But plan administrators may also have to watch more carefully to see whether the new system AI is finding new, high-tech ways to make patients look sicker than they are and "upcode" claims.
The backdrop: Amazon has been looking for ways to break into health care for decades.
It already operates a large online pharmacy and the Amazon One telehealth services and health care clinic business.
Amazon tested the new Amazon Health Connect tools in its own health care clinics.
The system incorporates "agentic AI" technology, or sophisticated AI technology designed to create systems that appear to have some judgment and the ability to handle tasks on their own, without direct human oversight.
The new Amazon system can connect directly with electronic health record systems.
When patients are making appointments, the system can check their insurance records.
The system can also record any procedures performed and diagnoses made while the patient is being examined.
The system can automatically add procedure and diagnostic codes to the visit record.
The system also links every piece of output to its source, such as a conversation transcript, a patient's medical records or billing guidelines, Aubrey says.
Aubrey says Amazon used health-care-specific data and guidelines to train the AI system and designed the system with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requirements in mind.
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