President Biden and other officials have expressed support for artificial intelligence innovation over the past year, provided that it is guided toward positive uses. Within healthcare, that has meant maintaining coverage and improving outcomes for patients, not taking access away.
To that end, federal agencies and Congress are both taking further steps to regulate AI and curb issues that already have started to emerge.
Biden himself addressed AI head-on last week at a meeting with his Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), among others in Congress, have floated the idea of future legislation to regulate AI in healthcare but first are soliciting public feedback on the topic, Politico reports.
So far, the industry reactions to the possibility of regulatory stipulations have been mixed, with concerns ranging from the potential for contradictory state and federal laws, to the worry they would exacerbate administrative burdens.
Starting next year, new rules from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will restrict how managed care companies can use AI. The new regulations will “ensure that they are making medical necessity determinations based on the circumstances of the specific individual,” as opposed to helping insurance companies cancel coverage.
The rules may be necessary following several complaints that some predictive tools “predict” recovery times that coincide directly with insurance coverage.
Several case studies were documented in a report this week from KFF Health News, including an anecdote by an 87-year-old man who says naviHealth’s AI undercut his nursing home recovery by a week, which led to a prolonged fight over insurance coverage.
The opaque decisions of AI that appear to favor insurance costs flies in the face of analyses of AI and ethics within healthcare, which have urged transparency and a clear understanding of how the tools work.
In anticipation of those concerns, some AI developers now are stressing their tech’s paper trail and how it aids caregivers, HealthAI.EM’s CEO, Praveen Soti, told the McKnight’s Tech Daily this week.
