Digital Health Tools and Technologies: An Overview of CMS’ Recent Efforts to Expand Their Use in Medicare

As an increasing share of older adults have adopted digital health technologies over the past several years, and with most expressing interest in using them to manage their health care, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has introduced several initiatives to expand the use of digital health technologies in Medicare. This brief summarizes…

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How Sutter Health Uses AI Agents to Handle Patients’ Scheduling, Refills & Billing Questions

Sutter Health is rolling out Hyro’s AI agents, which give patients 24/7 support for things like scheduling, prescription refills and billing questions. These agents aim to make routine healthcare interactions faster and easier, while also freeing up staff to handle more complex cases and providing data insights to improve the overall patient experience. The post…

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What the Health? From KFF Health News: The Government Is Open

The Host Emmarie Huetteman KFF Health News Emmarie Huetteman, senior editor, oversees a team of Washington reporters, as well as “Bill of the Month” and “What the Health? From KFF Health News.” She previously spent more than a decade reporting on the federal government, most recently covering surprise medical bills, drug pricing reform, and other health policy…

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A Look at Nursing Facility Characteristics Between 2015 and 2024

This data note examines the characteristics of nursing facilities and the people living in them with data from Nursing Home Compare, a publicly available dataset that provides a snapshot of information on quality of care in each nursing facility, and CASPER (Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reports), a dataset that includes detailed metrics collected by…

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Eliminating the ACA Medicaid Expansion Match Could Reduce Total Medicaid Spending by Up To $1.9 Trillion Over 10 Years and End Coverage for 20 Million People 

A new KFF analysis finds that a congressional proposal to significantly cut federal spending on the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion could reduce total Medicaid spending by up to nearly one-fifth, or $1.9 trillion, over a 10-year period, and end Medicaid coverage for as many as 20 million people. The impacts would be felt in…More

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I Didn’t Dedicate My Career to Medicine to Manage Paperwork — And AI Scribes Won’t Fix That

What clinicians really need today is comprehensive support to offload routine tasks. They need intelligent systems that can proactively highlight relevant patient history before appointments, flag care gaps, and automatically queue up appropriate screening reminders or preventive care protocols. The post I Didn’t Dedicate My Career to Medicine to Manage Paperwork — And AI Scribes…

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