{"id":906826,"date":"2026-09-27T01:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T01:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/906826\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T01:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T01:04:08","slug":"insurers-claim-ai-is-already-increasing-healthcare-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/906826\/","title":{"rendered":"Insurers claim AI is already increasing healthcare costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hospitals\u2019 use of artificial intelligence tools as they submit insurance claims led to an additional $942 million in healthcare spending over a two-year period, according to <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bcbs.com\/about-us\/association-news\/bcbsa-analysis-ai-coding-tools-affects-healthcare-costs\" target=\"_blank\">an analysis by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The BCBSA analysis found \u201ca sharp increase in patients being documented as having complex conditions,\u201d but argued there is a \u201cclear disconnect between [medical] coding and treatment,\u201d as there\u2019s \u201cno evidence of corresponding change in care delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The New York Times pointed the analysis as <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/24\/business\/ai-hospitals-insurers-health-care-costs.html\" target=\"_blank\">just the latest sign that AI is contributing to an increase in healthcare costs<\/a>. While battles between hospitals and insurers over treatments and payments are nothing new, the NYT said the use of AI on both sides seems to be making it worse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Shiv Rao, founder of AI startup Abridge, acknowledged that the use of AI could lead to \u201ca horrible dystopic future nobody wants to live in,\u201d with \u201cbots fighting bots, agents fighting agents.\u201d But Rao said it might also reduce tensions and cut costs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the BCBSA\u2019s senior vice president Luke Chalker resisted characterizing the situation as a battle, claiming, \u201cIt\u2019s not a war. It\u2019s a completely one-sided blood bath,\u201d with insurers on the losing side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hospitals\u2019 use of artificial intelligence tools as they submit insurance claims led to an additional $942 million in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[474949,64,63,94677,137,500],"class_list":["post-906826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-abridge","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blue-cross-blue-shield","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}