AI leaders ask for a slowdown, and health care ignores them; Medicare's AI prior auth pilot denied 5,944 requests; 59% of health care workers plan to look for a new job — Morning Medical Update Weekly Recap

AI's builders ask for a slowdown as Washington speeds up medical AI

Federal contracts, Medicare pilots and talk of paying AI a share of the physician rate are moving while the industry argues over its own brakes.

The chief executives of OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind each called for a slowdown in artificial intelligence (AI) development the week of Sept. 14, asking for coordination across companies and countries. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang disagreed, arguing the market already handles safety.

Federal health agencies went the other way. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health committed $62.7 million on Sept. 9 to build an AI agent that monitors heart failure patients between office visits and can refill, change and write prescriptions.

Officials have also discussed paying tech company AI 60% to 80% of what a physician earns for the same service, The New York Times reported Sept. 14. Models built to treat patients on their own "are not ready for prime time," American Medical Association CEO John Whyte, M.D., M.P.H., told the paper.

Related content: 10 ways AI is creeping into medical care

Medicare's AI prior authorization pilot denied 5,944 requests in three months

Records from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit show one vendor denied more requests than it approved, and one request went 83 days without an answer.

Two vendors in Medicare's WISeR prior authorization pilot denied 5,944 requests in the program's first three months, according to roughly 1,000 pages of records released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

One vendor, Virtix, denied more requests than it approved and had to file a corrective action plan. Several hundred requests were still unanswered at the end of March against a three-day goal, one of them 83 days old.

Vendors are paid for the requests they deny, and low quality scores cut their payment rates by only 5% to 10%. One provider wrote that patients were calling the office "crying in pain" while procedures waited on approvals.

CMS separately expanded its ACCESS Model on Sept. 15, adding tracks for heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, substance use disorders and nicotine dependence in spring 2027. The model pays organizations for measurable improvement in a patient's condition, and primary care physicians can refer patients and bill for co-management.

Jennifer Brull, M.D., FAAFP, board chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said physicians have to be careful that "more support does not equal more care fragmentation." Comments on the CY 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule closed Sept. 14.

Related content: New Medicare ACCESS model aims to reward results, not volume, for chronic disease care, New partnerships or fragmented care? A primary care leader discusses Medicare's ACCESS model and What they're saying about the draft 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule

59% of health care workers plan to look for a new job in the next year

Their employers put the figure at 39%.

Fifty-nine percent of health care workers said they are likely to look at job openings, interview for or switch roles in the next year, up from 55% in 2025. Their employers estimated 39%.

Among Gen Z workers the figure was 70%, followed by 64% of millennials and 49% of Gen X. The Harris Poll surveyed 1,514 full-time employees in direct patient care roles and 304 employers between June 12 and July 1.

Burnout and emotional fatigue led the reasons employers gave for departures, at 51%, up 15 points in a year. Twenty-six percent of workers said they trust their employer a great deal to support their long-term career growth.

Forty-eight percent said they are comfortable using AI in their current role, and 91% said they are proud to be health care workers.

Related content: 59% of health care workers plan to look for a new job in the next year, Harris Poll finds