What did the lawmakers discuss at the House hearing on Health AI?
Legislators and health policy experts gathered in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, for a hearing on the use of AI in health care.
Here are three main topics they discussed at the hearing.
Expand the practical use of AI in healthcare
In his opening speech, Representative Morgan Griffith, Chairman of the House Health Subcommittee, highlighted the importance of supporting providers and reducing the traditional tape festival.
He mentioned several areas where AI has shown hope in healthcare. In terms of research, Griffith notes that AI can accelerate drug discovery and accelerate clinical trial recruitment, which can help patients get new treatments faster.
As for administrative use cases, he highlighted the tools that can provide payers with more accurate claims handling and reduce the paperwork burden of clinicians. Griffith believes these types of improvements can free up clinicians to spend more time focusing on patients rather than getting stuck in back-office tasks.
Representative Nick Langworthy (R-New York) also highlighted the potential of AI to bridge the care gap in rural communities. He noted that the technology is beginning to expand diagnostic capabilities in these areas and enable patients to gain expertise without driving for hours.
Additionally, representative Diana Harshbarger (R-Tennessee) discussed how AI can improve care coordination between pharmacists and physicians, especially in rural areas where pharmacists are the most accessible providers.
She believes that better data sharing powered by AI can help pharmacists play a greater role in managing chronic diseases and ensuring patients’ medication adherence.
Concerns about supervision
Several members of Congress firmly believe that AI should increase the work clinicians do rather than replace it. They stressed that healthcare organizations need better supervision to ensure that humans are always in a cycle in terms of clinical AI tools.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which headed the Health Subcommittee, which is a matter of patient trust, saying “human judgment must be kept in the care center.”
Representative Diana Degette (D-Colorado) responded to Guthrie's remarks, warning that excessive reliance on AI could erode physician-patient relationships without establishing the right supervision mechanism.
Some leaders also doubt whether the FDA currently has enough power to effectively regulate AI-powered medical products.
Michelle Mello, a health policy scholar at Stanford University, notes that the FDA's existing framework is designed for static technology, rather than algorithms that are constantly learning and evolving. Without stronger post-market surveillance, the industry has the potential to “put the product into practice and thus get rid of its expected safety and effectiveness.”
Worry about the use of AI in advance authorization
Councillors are cautious about AI-powered previous authorization systems, especially in the Medicare Advantage program. Payers are increasingly using AI to automatically review the claim, which improves their profits through predictive rejection, but often limits patients’ access to care.
CMS launched a pilot program to introduce AI to prior authorizations that have been identified as abuse of high-risk traditional health insurance services. But Mello warned that asking human reviewers is not enough – she said “they may be accepted for rejection by AI's 'start',” essentially just a decision made by the rubber stamping machine.
Representative Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) strongly criticized the pilot and called for it to be closed until a better guardrail is in place. He highlighted the ill-fact motivation for the company to reject more claims.
“If you can turn down more and more claims, you'll get more money. This will hurt people,” Landsman declared.
Photo: Mike Kline, Getty Images
