Adam
Across the country, hospitals are always running on risky business. Doctors are dealing with life-altering procedures, patients are living in survival mode, while administration is handling the hectic behind-the-scenes. In almost every scenario, there is some type of pressure that is hitting the entire hospital system hard.
Even recently, hospitals have been experiencing tight margins, especially in the financial sense. Record labor expenses, rising supply costs, and inflation-driven consequences have pushed health systems into one of the most volatile eras in history. Today, we’re in a moment when money is particularly sensitive, and the scarcity of dollars across healthcare has sparked great attention.
On the backend, most do not realize what actually goes on when hospitals collect money. Every year, a large amount of revenue usually goes uncollected, buried under inconsistent record-keeping, outdated billing systems, and complex payer contracts. In many ways, the crisis comes from a lack of resources and visibility to proper financial management.
When hospitals do not realize what money is missing, it causes a number of implications. Many become at risk of going bankrupt, while thousands of patients either get displaced or untreated at the same time. And with more than 760 U.S. hospitals already on the verge of closure, the need to resolve the gap has never been more clear.
This is exactly where artificial intelligence is beginning to alter the healthcare landscape in more efficient and convenient ways.
In one recent example, a hospital in Kansas uncovered $17.4 million in recoverable revenue after applying an AI-driven analysis tool built by Iterate.ai, an AI enterprise led by CEO Jon Nordmark and CTO Brian Sathianathan. Under Iterate’s oversight, this technology was deployed not because the hospital was failing to do its job, but because the volume of payer data and concerning patterns had grown too wide to detect manually.
Instances like the Kansas hospital are becoming more frequent, and they reveal the very tool that hospitals have been missing all along.
When AI agents become the forefront of hospitalization, it means it is filling in gaps that administrators and clinicians cannot do alone. It has never been possible for an entire human team to get every detail of finances right, but the adoption of AI handles that void. By uncovering where issues lie, finding missed reimbursements, or revealing denial trends, what once seemed out of reach is now approachable with the simple help of automation.
AI also accomplishes what humans can’t realistically process, and in a much quicker way. Because it is fed vast amounts of existing data, AI machines can interpret the financial blind spots that point to systematic errors. It makes the financial side of healthcare more comprehensible so that people do not have to navigate the heavy load themselves.
Some believe AI in healthcare has its varying complexities, although most would argue it is the next best era for modern medicine. When hospitals are able to recover money they were already owed, they gain greater opportunities to invest in research, staff members, better training, or even programs to improve patient outcomes.
Of course, what AI also offers is a reinforcement of human intelligence. It enables nurses and admin teams to work with accuracy, eliminating the hours typically spent digging through patient records and discrepancies. It transforms what used to be a blurry cycle into a system that can finally function intentionally.
The direction society is moving in is incredibly promising, and the hospitals that follow in the AI race will be the ones that succeed well into the next few generations. AI is certainly not going anywhere, so it is important that every health system rides the wave now.
For the hospital in Kansas, they are a prime indicator of how AI is meant to answer the questions many hospitals have previously overlooked. Patient care has never been more seen thanks to AI, and it will certainly rise from here, but only as long as automation remains at the center.
