吃瓜不打烊

Skip to main content

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.

Subscribe Follow Us
  • Trump 2.0

    Trump 2.0

    • Agency Watch
    • State Watch
    • Rural Health Payout
  • Public Health

    Public Health

    • Vaccines
    • CDC & Disease
    • Environmental Health
    All Public Health
  • Audio Reports

    Audio Reports

    • What the Health?
    • Healthcare Helpline
    • 吃瓜不打烊 Minute
    • An Arm and a Leg
    • Health Hub
    • HealthQ
    • Silence in Sikeston
    • Epidemic
    All Audio
  • Special Reports

    Special Reports

    • Bill Of The Month
    • Common Ground
    • Diagnosis: Debt
    • The Body Shops
    • Priced Out
    • Guns, Race, and Profit
    • Broken Rehab
    • Dead Zone
    • Denied
    • Opioid Settlement Tracking
    • Eleven Minutes
    All Special Reports
  • More Topics

    More Topics

    • Elections
    • Healthcare Costs
    • Insurance
    • Prescription Drugs
    • Health Industry
    • Immigration
    • Reproductive Health
    • Technology
    • Rural Health
    • Race and Health
    • Aging
    • Mental Health
    • Affordable Care Act
    • Medicare
    • Medicaid
    • Children’s Health
    All Topics

  • Medicare Advantage Billing Probe
  • School Vaccine Mandates
  • Weight Loss Drugs Coverage
  • Opioid Settlement Money
  • Abortion Pill Access

Morning Briefing

Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

  • Email

Tuesday, Sep 15 2026 UPDATED 9:08 AM

Full Issue

Rollout Of Medicare's Pilot AI Prior Authorization Program Full of Bugs: Report

The WISeR (Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction model) program was launched across six states in January and used AI to help providers approve or deny care. Stat reported that, according to documents, the technology was poorly implemented and resulted in canceled and postponed surgeries.

The rollout of a Medicare program that uses artificial intelligence to approve or deny care was hasty and error-ridden, according to more than a thousand pages of recently released documents and data. (Trang, 9/15)

The Trump administration is accelerating efforts to make artificial intelligence an integral part of medical care in the United States, throwing the resources and support of the federal government into projects that deploy A.I. agents to diagnose and prescribe treatments to patients. The multifront effort at the Department of Health and Human Services has raised concerns among some officials over the past few months that change is moving too quickly, with inadequate evidence of the technology鈥檚 safety and effectiveness, according to people who have been involved the discussions. They also worry about outsized influence of Silicon Valley investors that have previously played little role in federal health policy. (Jewett, 9/14)

The Department of聽Veterans Affairs聽is planning to expand the use of an artificial intelligence tool that records veteran-doctor conversations with patient consent after a series of rollouts it says have been successful. The VA first deployed聽the technology 鈥 known as ambient AI scribes聽鈥斅爄n October 2025 at 10 medical centers across the nation. After a series of pilots over the past year, the tools聽are now available to all VA Patient Aligned Care Teams鈥 primary care providers, behavioral health interdisciplinary program practitioners, physical medicine rehabilitation practitioners and medical and surgical specialists.聽 (Robles, 9/14)

Federal contracts, Medicare pilots and new state laws have pushed artificial intelligence from the edges of clinical practice into the middle of it. (Littrell, 9/14)

As artificial intelligence begins to transform the workforce and reshape industries, one Bay Area healthcare system is using the technology to support doctors and streamline care. Sutter Health, a not-for-profit healthcare system based in Sacramento, serves more than 3.5 million patients throughout Northern and Central California and has significantly expanded its use of artificial intelligence in clinical care in recent years. (Gibbs, 9/14)

Machine learning enables computers to learn from data and use that knowledge to make predictions or decisions. In health care, machine learning supports tasks such as disease diagnosis, predicting disease progression, treatment planning and patient monitoring. (Skeidsvoll, 9/14)

Also 鈥

Pfas companies are launching a 鈥渢idal wave鈥 of forever chemicals production to meet demand from the AI industry, a campaign organisation has warned. Despite alarm over the chemicals, which have been linked to cancer, a survey of the 10 biggest manufacturers found most had plans to increase production. Many frame their investments around the 鈥淎I revolution鈥, because of the role Pfas play in semiconductor production and next-generation datacentre cooling systems. (Gayle, 9/14)

Bill Gates is warning technology companies and world leaders that they must act now to ensure artificial intelligence combats social inequities rather than deepening disparities 鈥 and his foundation is pledging $1 billion to improve access. (Pollard, 9/15)

This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
Newsletter icon

Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Stay informed by signing up for the Morning Briefing and other emails:

Recent Morning Briefings

  • Today, September 15
  • Monday, September 14
  • Friday, September 11
  • Thursday, September 10
  • Wednesday, September 9
  • Tuesday, September 8
More Morning Briefings
RSS Feeds
  • Podcasts
  • Special Reports
  • Morning Briefing
  • 吃瓜不打烊
  • Republish Our Content
  • Contact Us

Follow Us

  • RSS

Sign up for emails

Join our email list for regular updates based on your personal preferences.

Sign up
  • Editorial Policy
  • Privacy Policy

漏 2026 KFF