Blue Cross says AI coding tools added $942 million in costs
An insurer trade group's analysis ties hospitals' use of AI documentation tools to nearly $1 billion in extra claims spending, with no matching change in the care patients received.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association said hospitals' use of AI documentation tools added $942 million in health spending over two years.
The insurer group's analysis found a sharp rise in patients coded as having complex conditions when hospitals submitted claims, but no matching change in the care patients actually received, the BCBSA said. Luke Chalker of the BCBSA described the dynamic starkly: "It's not a war. It's a completely one-sided blood bath," TechCrunch reported.
Shiv Rao, chief executive of the AI documentation startup Abridge, acknowledged the industry could see competing automated systems from insurers and hospitals working against each other. He said that dynamic might eventually ease the tension and lower costs rather than raise them, according to TechCrunch.
The BCBSA's figures cover its own member health plans and have not been independently verified by hospitals or the makers of the AI tools involved. TechCrunch did not name which specific AI products drove the increase.