AI could streamline administrative burdens in health care: a quick guide

Artificial intelligence (AI) programs could help physicians and patients by improving processes around prior authorization, quality reporting, and documentation and billing.

Physician and medical student authors outlined current challenges in health care and how AI could help in an editorial, “Unburdening Patients and Clinicians Through Automation and Artificial Intelligence: Informatics Strategies for Reducing Administrative Burden,” published this month in Journal of Medical Systems. Here are some of their findings and recommendations.

Prior authorization

The problem: Physicians spend $26.7 billion a year navigating prior authorization

The solution: Use large language model programs “to comb through patient charts and extract comprehensive clinical information for review,” creating point-of-care discussions between physicians and patients.

Quality metrics

The problem: Complying with Medicare’s Merit-based Incentive Payment System costs $15.4 billion a year, or more than $40,000 per physician

The solution: Automate quality reporting data.

Documentation and billing

The problem: Primary care physicians spend almost six hours a day interacting with electronic health records, with clerical tasks taking nearly half that time.

The solution: AI scribes could automate a significant portion of that workflow.

The editorial was written by Caleb Keng; Anthony DiGiorgio, DO, MHA; Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH; Joseph Spear; and Brian J. Miller, MD, MBA, MPH.