AI was supposed to save health care. What if it makes it more expensive?

Last year, Mount Sinai Hospital switched on an artificial intelligence program to search the hospital’s records for evidence of malnourished patients in its wards. The numbers it turned up were eye-popping: 20 percent more cases were diagnosed than in the previous year.

Around the same time, Barbara Murphy, chief of the renowned health system’s department of medicine, was helping to develop another AI program, to predict whether diabetic patients are at near-term risk of kidney disease and to help prioritize specialist visits for those who are. One of the early findings, according to Murphy: “We probably need some more nephrologists.”

As hospital systems around the country unleash machine learning algorithms — computer models that function like millions of unblinking eyes inspecting patient records — such findings are becoming more common. The algorithms, deployed in hospitals over the past couple of years, are often designed to help locate the sickest patients, but in some cases, they also provide more opportunities to bill.

The full Politico article can be viewed at this link.