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Tuesday, 24 March 2026 |
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Lessons from the last health tech revolution |
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| Given his former role as US national coordinator for health IT, you might expect that Farzad Mostashari would be an AI enthusiast. But his experience overseeing the rollout of electronic health records across the country has made him cautious. |
| Mostashari, who’s now the CEO of value-based care company Aledade, was the nation’s health IT chief from 2011 to 2013, in charge of getting medical practices away from paper charts and onto computers. The goal was to improve care and prevent strokes and heart attacks. Instead — and he’s frustrated about this — EHRs primarily became tools for coding diagnoses and billing insurers, he told me last week. |
| Mostashari is worried AI will end up similarly. Already, we’re seeing health systems embrace AI for medical coding, which is likely increasing the cost of care, he said. Health insurers are spending money on AI tools to fight back. |
| "That kind of bot-on-bot violence, who’s that helping? How’s that creating value?" he asked. |
| What’s clear to Mostashari is that for technology to be used to improve care and prevent disease, an organization’s business model needs to encourage that. Fee-for-service providers just don’t have that incentive, he said. |
| In contrast, Aledade works with primary care practices to take accountability for the total cost and quality of care for millions of seniors enrolled in Medicare. Its instinct wasn’t to use AI to bill or even reduce the workforce but to support clinicians in making better decisions, Mostashari said. |
| Aledade uses AI to bring together disparate patient data from health information exchanges, payer claims, labs and pharmacies, and make it actionable at the point of care so clinicians can determine the next best steps for the patient. The technology is being used by more than 1,000 primary care practices. Aledade is starting to see indications that it’s leading to earlier diagnoses and treatment, and more prescriptions for life-saving medicines, Mostashari said. |
| The broader healthcare industry has been grappling with how to pay for clinical AI tools. But that’s not a concern for Aledade. |
| "What I love about our business is no one's paying for the AI. We're getting paid for outcomes. And I think outcome-based businesses are going to be the beneficiaries," Mostashari said. |
| - Shelby |
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Exclusive: XO Health to expand its alternative health plan nationwide
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XO Health, a startup offering an alternative health plan, is gearing up to work with self-insured employers and plan administrators across the country.
The startup is expanding its episode-based pricing model, in which it pays doctors a fixed amount to deliver and coordinate all care for a specific condition, to major metropolitan areas across the US starting in October. The company first launched in three states at the start of 2025. |
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Step aside, Dr. Google |
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Consumers are increasingly turning to AI chatbots for health information, a new Rock Health survey found. 32% of survey respondents used AI for health information in 2025, up from 16% in 2024. ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini seemed to be the favorites. |
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Worldwide made. Thanks for reading.
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