AI advancements in healthcare are here

By TJ Parker

This is a lightly edited excerpt of testimony recently provided to the U.S. House’s Energy and Commerce Health subcommittee hearing "Examining Opportunities to Advance American Health Care through the Use of Artificial Intelligence Technologies."

Americans are frustrated. They want healthcare to be easier. At General Medicine, we’re using AI to directly improve the customer experience across all care, from basic needs to complex cases.  

General Medicine is a healthcare store: a one-stop shop for telemedicine, prescriptions, imaging, labs, specialists or anything you need. We’ve made it as easy to shop for healthcare as it is to shop for anything else. This means a clear choice of providers, upfront price (with or without insurance), and a simple way to actually book the care they need right on our platform. We take insurance, or customers can pay with cash. This approach eliminates the opacity and quagmire of complexity that customers experience while trying, and often failing, to access healthcare today. Our mission is to get every customer the best care for their needs. So far, customers love it. And it wouldn’t have been possible without AI. 

In healthcare, people rarely know what care will cost in the end. They can’t possibly “shop” without a clear price. We set out to change that. Behind the scenes at General Medicine, we analyze the customer’s insurance information, including their 80–100-page coverage of benefits. We use large language models to turn these PDFs into structured data, then combine that with open pricing files and other sources to give customers a clear, upfront price for any service, including procedures, labs, imaging, referrals and pharmacy at any location. This is the first time comprehensive pricing has been available in U.S. healthcare.    

Another example: actionable, proactive care plans. When you go to a doctor today, it’s almost always for an isolated reason. You leave with a prescription or one follow-up task. It’s all our current system is set up to handle. 

Today, General Medicine is using AI so that patients, after their visit, have a comprehensive, personalized, actionable plan covering not just what brought them in, but all their conditions and any overdue preventative care. With patient permission, we use AI to pull together their medical history, labs, and prescriptions, then flag what’s missing: Maybe a colonoscopy, a cholesterol check or a follow-up lab for blood sugar. Their doctor reviews it, and the customer sees it all in one place where they can easily take action on each step via General Medicine—  it’s the equivalent of adding to cart and checking out. Truly making healthcare as intelligent and easy to shop as anything else.

Looking ahead, we’re building the ability for patients to directly request these insights themselves. People can ask questions back and forth with the AI to clarify the recommendations, based on their needs and preferences, then seamlessly book with a provider to discuss and take action. This innovation allows patients, in collaboration with providers, to take informed control of their health.  

Read the full testimony here.

TJ Parker is a Leading Investor at General Medicine.

_{*The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of HealthPlatform.News.}