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AI is transforming medicine in big ways in 2026 · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:10
  You're listening to the Hidden Lightness on America Out Loud Talk Radio.
• 0:14
  I'm your host, Jimmy Hinton.
• 0:16
  Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing the medical field.
• 0:20
  And this is something that I actually can get behind.
• 0:24
  I think there are a lot of really good things that are happening, and the news shows that.
• 0:34
  The projections are in, and it's all looking pretty positive for the medical field when it comes to artificial intelligence.
• 0:44
  I talk about artificial intelligence.
• 0:46
  I talk about some of the flaws within our medical care system.
• 0:50
  It is very frustrating.
• 0:52
  And I think all of us have felt that frustration at some point within the medical system.
• 1:00
  From medical care being incredibly expensive to getting wrong diagnoses to the inefficiency.
• 1:11
  How about every time you go to the doctor and you fill out a new form?
• 1:16
  And they ask you all the same information, literally that they've asked you the time before.
• 1:22
  What are the medications you're on?
• 1:24
  What are you know, it's the medical screening?
• 1:28
  What are uh some issues that you're facing, some health issues, what's your medical history?
• 1:36
  What's your address, phone number, all that stuff that you give literally every single time you go to the doctor?
• 1:46
  It's so frustrating and so annoying.
• 1:50
  And I ask them now every time like, do you guys not have this in the system?
• 1:56
  I mean, this is kind of frightening that literally every single time I take my child to the doctor, I have to fill out the same exact form with the same exact information, as if the address and phone number are gonna change from one month to the next, or within six months or whatever.
• 2:21
  And so instead of asking you, has anything changed, they literally have you fill everything out from scratch.
• 2:28
  I mean, it is every single time.
• 2:31
  So I started asking them why why do you have me fill this out?
• 2:35
  Do you guys not have this information?
• 2:38
  Is there some kind of a data breach?
• 2:40
  Is my information being stolen?
• 2:43
  Do you have this information in your system?
• 2:46
  And every time they give the same answer, we don't really know.
• 2:52
  We're not sure why they make us do this, but they make us do this every time.
• 2:56
  And I'm like, you don't even know why you're taking people's information.
• 3:01
  The inconsistency and inefficiency, it's absolutely astounding.
• 3:08
  And I know that there are there are major layoffs in the medical field, and I applaud some of these layoffs.
• 3:16
  When it comes to record keeping, it's absolutely atrocious.
• 3:21
  And I'm telling you, I'm not exaggerating when when I say every single time that we have any kind of a procedure or test or anything like that.
• 3:32
  The medical billing gets it wrong.
• 3:35
  There's always a mistake.
• 3:36
  My wife has, I think, two backlogged uh medical forms that are medical bills, rather, that they claim haven't been paid.
• 3:50
  She was turned over to collections at one point, I think.
• 3:54
  And every single time she's like, I paid it.
• 3:57
  Here's the evidence.
• 3:58
  Here's the proof.
• 3:59
  Like, what don't you guys how are you getting this wrong every single time over and over and over again?
• 4:06
  And so it doesn't give us a big vote of confidence when it comes to efficiency, at a bare minimum, efficiency within the system.
• 4:14
  But I think the bigger issue is that there's a trust issue when it comes to managing our data just in general.
• 4:22
  And we've all heard the stories, the malpractice stories where doctors have amputated the wrong limbs because of botched paperwork.
• 4:32
  I mean, that's the kind of stuff that it's kind of important to get right.
• 4:38
  But then the simple things they get wrong.
• 4:41
  Medication.
• 4:42
  I've been with people when they prescribe medication, and the doctor has insisted that this medication is right.
• 4:50
  And the patient said, no, no, no, I can't take that medication.
• 4:54
  I'm taking this pill, and you can't mix these medications.
• 4:59
  And the doctor will argue with them.
• 5:02
  And then finally, I mean, after the patient is pleading with the doctor, and I always advocate for the patients when I bring patients in, you have to advocate for them.
• 5:16
  And I'll say, why don't you just call another doctor?
• 5:18
  Like, is your pride that important that you won't call and double check?
• 5:24
  And sure enough, eventually they they double check, and they're like, oh, you know, then they just brush it off like it's no big deal.
• 5:32
  Oh, you're right.
• 5:34
  I mean, that's the kind of stuff that I've witnessed firsthand, and it's so incredibly frustrating.
• 5:41
  So the good news is that artificial intelligence is really taken off within the medical community.
• 5:49
  And this is a very, very good thing.
• 5:51
  Here's a Fox Business article.
• 5:55
  Uh right hot off the press.
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  How artificial intelligence is transforming health care.
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  Recent industry survey shows nearly one-third of US health systems now pay for commercial AI licenses.
• 6:11
  And we're going to see those numbers increase over time.
• 6:15
  Open AI says about 40 million users worldwide now use chat GPT daily for health-related questions.
• 6:27
  The company recently launched Chat GPT Health, a feature that allows users to analyze medical test results, prepare for doctor's appointments, and seek general guidance.
• 6:40
  Now, I want to be careful here because artificial intelligence cannot replace doctors.
• 6:48
  Physical, real human doctors.
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  But what it can do is it can enhance medical diagnoses.
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  It can enhance the work that our doctors do.
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  And it's meant to be an aid.
• 7:03
  It was never designed to replace doctors.
• 7:08
  In my life, I recently, in the in the past, I don't know, six, eight months.
• 7:15
  I developed something really weird and actually quite alarming, at least alarming for me.
• 7:23
  And it's something on my tongue.
• 7:26
  I noticed something really different, like lesions on my tongue.
• 7:30
  And of course, the first thing you think is, could this be cancer?
• 7:34
  And uh I'm getting pretty worried, and it's very, very difficult to get a dentist appointment.
• 7:43
  In my town, there's just such a backlog.
• 7:45
  I mean, an incredible shortage of dentists, and a lot of people from my town are traveling an hour plus to go to other dentists because we just we have a major, major shortage in our area.
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  So appointments get booked, I mean, months out in advance.
• 8:03
  Surgeries are getting booked like 12 months out.
• 8:07
  All right, so it's it's really challenging.
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  And I knew that I couldn't just call up the dentist and get an appointment.
• 8:16
  And this problem was getting, it was getting worse.
• 8:20
  And it uh it was looking worse, it was feeling worse.
• 8:24
  I still have issues with speech sometimes, like it's it's affected my speech.
• 8:30
  And I was I was really, really worried about this because mouth cancer of any time kind, tongue cancer, anything like that, it's very aggressive.
• 8:41
  It's nothing to play around with.
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  And you don't want to wait six, eight months before you can even see a doctor, which was gonna be my case.
• 8:52
  Uh, you know, the other the only other option would be to go to a uh like a medical clinic and hope that you can see somebody there, but to be honest, they're not specialists, they're not dentists, they're not trained to see these kinds of things.
• 9:10
  Not to say that they can't, but I decided you know what?
• 9:15
  I'm gonna try, I'm gonna try artificial intelligence.
• 9:18
  And I am not so I trust me when I say this.
• 9:23
  I am not advocating for people self-diagnosing.
• 9:27
  Uh, do not self diagnose.
• 9:31
  And that's not what I did.
• 9:33
  Uh, but I wanted to see what are the options, what are what are the different possibilities for what I have?
• 9:41
  So I took a picture of my tongue, I uploaded it to my AI app, and I just started asking very, very specific questions.
• 9:52
  And before I knew it, it uh kind of spit out like this is the most likely uh the most
• 10:00
  Most likely thing that you have is something that's very benign, it's called geographic tongue, and it's nothing to worry about.
• 10:07
  It's uh, you know, just an annoyance, nobody really knows why you get it.
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  And it showed a whole mess of pictures for comparison.
• 10:17
  And then it talked about the symptoms, and it talked about you know all the things that I was experiencing.
• 10:24
  And you have to be careful of confirmation bias.
• 10:28
  So confirmation bias is you you have an idea, you think you know what it is, and then you see something that kind of backs up those claims, and then you're like, see, I knew it.
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  I knew it all along.
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  So that's called confirmation bias.
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  And you have to be very careful of that.
• 10:45
  You have to be open, you have to be honest.
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  Uh as ordinary people who who don't have medical background.
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  We have to be humble, and we have to say, you know what, like I'm not a medical professional.
• 10:59
  So I just I don't know.
• 11:03
  But what it did for me is it laid out different possibilities, and then it kind of ranked them as these are some of the more likely things that it could be.
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  And very number one at the top of the list was geographic tongue.
• 11:20
  And so I was a little bit relieved, but still kind of on edge.
• 11:25
  And of course, uh, in the app it said you absolutely need to get a medical opinion.
• 11:34
  You need to see a doctor, you need to get it checked in person.
• 11:38
  Okay, good.
• 11:39
  Check.
• 11:41
  So fortunately, I had a dentist appointment that was already scheduled.
• 11:45
  It was coming up.
• 11:47
  And I went in, and of course, they asked, Do you have any concerns?
• 11:50
  And I said, Yeah, actually I do.
• 11:53
  And I showed them showed them the tongue, and then the dentist came in.
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  And the first thing he says, without even an ounce of hesitation.
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  He said, Oh, you have the most classic case of geographic tongue.
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  And then he described to me what it was and and how it responded.
• 12:16
  And I never told him that I looked it up and that I suspected that's what it was.
• 12:20
  Like I didn't do that.
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  Because quite honestly, that's a little bit offensive to doctors.
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  And it can be a lot offensive to doctors because they get this kind of crap all the time.
• 12:30
  Where people come in and they've already researched and they argue with the doctors, and no, I think it's this.
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  I think you're wrong.
• 12:38
  And they'll argue and argue and argue with doctors, and those are just ordinary people that don't have any medical background.
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  I acknowledge wholeheartedly that I don't have a medical background.
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  I'm not the professional.
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  I don't know.
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  I didn't go to medical school.
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  So I'm not going to go in there and pretend like I already knew what it was.
• 13:02
  You know, I well, I already knew it was geographic.
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  You know, I didn't know.
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  I had an uh I had artificial intelligence analyze and kind of give me a report of of what it could be.
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  But at the end of the day, I don't know.
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  And that's where we still need doctors.
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  Even though they're human, they make mistakes.
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  We absolutely need we need the doctors and nurses and PAs.
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  We need all of them.
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  But where artificial intelligence helps is it kind of streamlines this process.
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  And not just with helping doctors diagnose certain things.
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  And that's really how it ought to be used.
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  You know, not the general public coming up with their own diagnoses.
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  And that's where I warn against that.
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  Do not self-diagnose.
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  That's just not a good idea.
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  Always seek medical treatment.
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  Always go to a doctor.
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  Schedule a doctor's appointment.
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  It's okay to look, it's okay for curiosity.
• 14:23
  It's okay to, you know, maybe help you go into the doctor and have a little bit of information, but do not self-diagnose.
• 14:34
  But what's going on in in the medical field is that according to this article, hospitals and health systems are increasingly partnering with major AI companies to improve their diagnostics, streamline operations, and expand access to medical information.
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  So this is really promising.
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  And that whole access to medical information, you would be shocked.
• 15:02
  Or maybe you wouldn't.
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  Maybe it wouldn't surprise you at all.
• 15:05
  But I sometimes am shocked at the lack of information that's available to doctors.
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  Even within the same health system.
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  You know, we have a UPMC hospital right here in in my town.
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  And I've taken people to Pittsburgh, and they've tried to look up records, and they're like, well, we can't, we can't see the patient's records.
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  I'm like, what are you talking about?
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  Like this patient is a UPMC patient.
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  All of their information is in your database.
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  And you're telling me that that information doesn't transfer transfer from one UPMC hospital to the next.
• 15:55
  But AI is being used to streamline this process to make this data available and to and to analyze the information and to categorize the information in a system that makes sense.
• 16:10
  Because I don't know what system the hospitals are using and the doctors, but I've seen the result.
• 16:21
  You may as well take paper notes because it's probably going to be more reliable in a lot of in a lot of areas.
• 16:28
  So AI is really helping out.
• 16:30
  It's uh it's a good assist, it's a good thing.
• 16:33
  And after the break, I'm going to talk about the different trends that are coming up in 2026.
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  There are different predictions, different areas by medical professionals, and it's all really good stuff.
• 16:47
  You know, AI, when it's used properly, is a very good thing.
• 16:51
  It's a very good assist.
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  It's it's uh it's good, good, good, good at analyzing data.
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  It's good at helping figure out overlap on medications, you know, all of that stuff.
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  Much more efficient than humans will ever be.
• 17:06
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• 19:52
  Artificial intelligence is entering into the medical field.
• 19:56
  In fact, it's been there for a while, but it's really increasing by
• 20:00
  A lot.
• 20:01
  And it's assisting in all kinds of different areas.
• 20:04
  And we're going to discuss some of those areas here, but uh we'll talk about the benefits because I just see this being a good thing overall from start to finish.
• 20:14
  If used properly, artificial intelligence is really going to streamline the medical system, which is already very broken.
• 20:22
  It's inefficient.
• 20:24
  It's way too expensive.
• 20:27
  And a big reason is because of the inefficiency.
• 20:31
  We have multiple things that are duplicated within the system over and over.
• 20:35
  I lamented before the commercial break.
• 20:40
  I lamented in my own experience that I have to fill out these forms every single time.
• 20:48
  It's like they lose the data and they don't have a clue what your medical background is.
• 20:53
  It's like they're seeing you for the first time.
• 20:56
  And I've had my kids go into the pediatrician since they were infants.
• 21:01
  So my oldest is almost 16 years old.
• 21:04
  We've never changed doctors, and every single time I have to, I have to fill out these forms.
• 21:11
  The medical background forms.
• 21:24
  Like all that stuff.
• 21:28
  It hasn't changed for over a decade.
• 21:34
  So it's really frustrating.
• 21:36
  And I'm all for streamlining streamlining the system, uh, getting information out faster within the medical system from doctor to doctor, uh, specialist to specialist, and helping with diagnostics.
• 21:53
  So in this article that I referenced, it's a Fox Business News article, says Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is one of OpenAI's healthcare partners, along with several other major U.S.
• 22:06
  hospital systems.
• 22:08
  MSK chief strategy officer, Dr.
• 22:12
  NA's, Ophidile, the second, Tot Fox Business, the hospital is exploring how AI can be used responsibly across research, patient education, and administrative operations.
• 22:27
  Over to the next year, we'll identify where these tools can add value, evaluate them carefully, and work toward scaling them responsibly.
• 22:36
  Our responsibility is to make sure these technologies are safe, ethical, and truly beneficial to patients.
• 22:42
  Amen.
• 22:43
  I can definitely amen that.
• 22:57
  In other words, AI is here to stay.
• 23:00
  Whether you like it or not, we can't go back to a time where AI didn't exist.
• 23:06
  Those days are gone.
• 23:08
  Just like we can't go back to horse and buggies.
• 23:12
  Once the car was invented, the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, and cars are here to stay.
• 23:20
  Same is true with artificial intelligence.
• 23:22
  It's here to stay.
• 23:26
  The doctor goes on to say the question now is how we make sure it's used responsibly.
• 23:32
  And that is a good question.
• 23:36
  So here in the dermatology lab at MSK, researchers are testing AI tools that analyze medical images and patient data to identify suspicious lesions and flag high-risk individuals.
• 23:52
  It's exactly what I was talking about before the break, but that was on a very basic level.
• 23:59
  That was me just uploading a picture and basically saying, hey, what is this?
• 24:03
  What or what could this be?
• 24:06
  And it kind of spit out and very accurately it spit out what the highest probability was of what medical issue I was facing.
• 24:18
  Well, now these are paid tools, paid AI tools, very specialized, and this is how they're being used.
• 24:29
  Dr.
• 24:30
  Veronica Rodenberg, director of dermatology informatics program at MSK, said this.
• 24:37
  I think AI is going to be a game changer for skin cancer detection in particular.
• 24:43
  The most important thing right now is testing these technologies in real clinical settings so we can understand just how impactful they are.
• 24:52
  This is really cool.
• 24:53
  One of the tools that's being evaluated is uh 360 degree total bottle total body photography system.
• 25:03
  It uses 92 cameras to capture detailed images of a patient's skin.
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  Then they use AI to automatically detect new or changing lesions over time.
• 25:16
  See, the human eye can't do that.
• 25:20
  There's just certain things that we're limited in.
• 25:24
  So a lot of times, if you actually do have cancer, and many of you know this, many of you have experienced this, either with yourself, a family member, or a friend.
• 25:34
  You get an improper diagnos uh diagnosis, sometimes for years, because doctors don't detect whether it's in the blood work, they don't detect little subtleties, or uh physically what they can see, what they can monitor, and then especially if if if it's internal, it's incredibly difficult to detect.
• 25:59
  Scans are often misread for whatever reason.
• 26:04
  I think the biggest reason is that it's just we're dealing with the human eye, and the human eye makes mistakes.
• 26:13
  So that's where artificial intelligence comes in, and it it can do with a very high degree of accuracy.
• 26:20
  It can detect these little subtleties.
• 26:24
  So another technology, which is called reflectance conifical microscopy, it allows doctors to see beneath the skin's surface.
• 26:34
  There's a light-powered microscope, it detects melanoma, which is the deadliest form of skin cancer, with about 80% accuracy.
• 26:44
  I'll take those chances.
• 26:48
  You know, it's not 100%, not yet, but that's pretty darn good.
• 26:54
  That's actually really incredible.
• 26:57
  Roughly 112,000 Americans are diagnosed with melanoma each year, according to the American Cancer Society.
• 27:07
  So, you know, this is one of the things that it's very frustrating for people, or it was in the past, where they would go see a dermatologist and dermatologists kind of looking, they're like, uh, you know, I don't really know.
• 27:21
  And then of course they have to do a biopsy and biopsies are painful.
• 27:25
  Biopsies still sometimes uh don't generate good results, and it's so challenging.
• 27:37
  And this is not the fault of the doctors.
• 27:39
  So make no mistake, we're not pointing fingers here.
• 27:43
  We're just saying that there's a human element, and when you factor in that human element, mistakes get made.
• 27:51
  And the human eye doesn't see things, it can't see things that these computers, especially microscopes, um, they measure with the highest degree of accuracy.
• 28:07
  Uh, we the human eye just can't see those things that artificial intelligence can.
• 28:13
  So, again, and this goes back to what I said.
• 28:16
  This is what Dr.
• 28:16
  Rodenberg said, these technologies still require clinical judgment.
• 28:22
  They're not a substitute for trained medical professionals.
• 28:27
  Right.
• 28:27
  So, for anybody who thinks that AI is taking over and that we don't need doctors anymore, or there's gonna come a time where we don't need physical doctors, that's just not true.
• 28:41
  You know, this is not like the automated trucks.
• 28:45
  I did a couple shows on automated semi-trucks where we're getting to the point where we actually have designated routes where these driverless trucks are taken down the highway, going across state lines, and they're doing it with incredible accuracy.
• 29:06
  They're literally replacing drivers, at least long haul drivers.
• 29:11
  And then, of course, the local drivers, physical drivers, human beings, they take over, then they finish the delivery.
• 29:20
  All right, you still need a human, but for these long hauls, that's the you know, for that section, the humans are replaced.
• 29:28
  I don't think that's gonna be the case with doctors.
• 29:31
  I don't think there's gonna be a pretty lengthy section of quote unquote length of highway to use that metaphor, that there's gonna be a length of time where we don't need physical doctors.
• 29:44
  I just don't see that taking place.
• 29:47
  I think when it comes to uh medical diagnoses uh and medical treatment, it's just a whole different ball game.
• 29:55
  So, what are some of the AI trends that we're facing in?
• 30:00
  In the year 2026.
• 30:04
  Let's see.
• 30:04
  Which article do I want to focus on?
• 30:06
  This is one.
• 30:09
  This is from Becker's Hospital Review.
• 30:14
  And the title of this article is How the AI Conversation Will Change in 2026.
• 30:20
  10 bold predictions.
• 30:21
  This is by Molly Gamble, uh, written mid-December.
• 30:26
  So very recent article.
• 30:29
  She says at this point, it's impossible to deny.
• 30:33
  Healthcare is being transformed by the introduction and mass adoption of powerful AI technologies.
• 30:41
  Just a few years after the launch of generative AI, the leading ambient AI platform now supports more than a million weekly clinical encounters in the U.S.
• 30:51
  alone.
• 30:52
  By comparison, it took the electronic health record decades to achieve similar penetration.
• 31:00
  All right, so the AI is light years, light years ahead of other technologies.
• 31:09
  And we can't deny this.
• 31:11
  I mean, it's just it's it's happening so quickly.
• 31:13
  And do you remember?
• 31:14
  I mean, just what was it?
• 31:16
  A year, a year and a half ago.
• 31:19
  It was so blatantly obvious with generative AI.
• 31:23
  You could tell when somebody made an image, they created an image of somebody, and it was AI.
• 31:28
  You could see the six fingers on one hand, and you know, like body parts that were like they had two arms that would mesh into one arm and like all these major mistakes.
• 31:42
  We're talking a year and a half ago, two years at the most.
• 31:48
  Look at where it's at now.
• 31:51
  You can not tell the difference.
• 31:56
  I have a friend who was just showing me uh he was using Grok.
• 32:01
  And he said, look at look at what this can do.
• 32:06
  So he's like, I'm playing around with different um different inputs here.
• 32:12
  But you can take a picture of your pet.
• 32:16
  You take a picture of your pet, you upload it, and you say, What would my pet look like as a human?
• 32:25
  It is absolutely incredible.
• 32:28
  The images that it spit out.
• 32:30
  I I was actually in disbelief.
• 32:32
  I was like, you cannot tell that that's a fictitious made up, literally artificial intelligence took your dog, turned it into a human, and you can't tell.
• 32:46
  You cannot tell that that's not a real human.
• 32:49
  It's that good.
• 32:51
  And it does it in a matter of a second, two seconds.
• 32:57
  I mean, it's only going to get faster, it's only gonna get better.
• 33:01
  So it's here to stay.
• 33:03
  And the question is, how are we going to use it?
• 33:07
  You know, how are we gonna shave in this case decades off?
• 33:14
  You know, something that took decades to achieve.
• 33:19
  The electronic health record.
• 33:21
  AI does it in a matter of I don't know.
• 33:27
  Months, if that's absolutely incredible.
• 33:32
  So here are some of the 10 predictions, and we'll certainly talk about some of these after the break, too.
• 33:38
  But number one, point solutions will give way to integrated AI platforms that become the foundation of healthcare infrastructure.
• 33:47
  So AI is not a one-off.
• 33:50
  Right.
• 33:51
  In fact, she says here the era of one-off AI tools is ending.
• 33:57
  The next year is about consolidation.
• 33:59
  2026 is about consolidation.
• 34:01
  Fewer vendors, more value, and a shift from tool per task solutions to flat platforms clinicians don't have to think about because they're just there, running beneath the surface.
• 34:15
  I actually really like this idea.
• 34:17
  I like this idea of less is more.
• 34:20
  Then instead of having an overwhelming, you know, all these competitive AI tools, and one works halfway and another one works like, you know, three quarters of the way.
• 34:32
  They're just gonna have three or four that they have tested that are tested, tried and true.
• 34:39
  And those are going to be working beneath the surface.
• 34:41
  They're just there.
• 34:42
  The AI tools are at the fingertips of the doctors of every doctor.
• 34:48
  I agree.
• 34:49
  I think it's going to be that streamlined this year.
• 34:54
  Uh, number two, clinical decision support will evolve beyond search with contextual awareness.
• 35:04
  So it's actual support.
• 35:05
  For years, clinical decision support has been trapped in a frustrating middle zone.
• 35:11
  Better than searching guidelines manually, worse than talking to a specialist.
• 35:19
  In 2026, leaders expect CDS clinical decision support to leap forward into something closer to a true real-time assistant, aware of the patient's chart, the live conversation, payer rules, and the relevant literature.
• 35:38
  This is really, really important.
• 35:41
  Because this is real-time support that the doctor needs.
• 35:51
  And uh, very much to his credit, we really liked him.
• 35:54
  That was the first time we ever had this doctor.
• 35:57
  Um, but he was really, really exceptional.
• 36:01
  He was a younger guy, and my son had an infection.
• 36:07
  It was a really bizarre infection, and uh, it was underneath the fingernail.
• 36:14
  And he's like, I think that this is the route that I'm gonna go.
• 36:19
  These are the tests I'm you know, I'm gonna do a prick test, and I'm gonna get it, you know, send it off to the lab, and here's what I'm gonna prescribe, and here's why.
• 36:27
  And like he was very thorough and just very, very good at explaining everything to us.
• 36:32
  And he said, however, I don't want to be wrong.
• 36:37
  So is it okay if I take a picture of your son's fingernail?
• 36:41
  And I'm gonna send this off to uh the lead doctor who we've had many times before.
• 36:47
  He's very, very good.
• 36:48
  And I said, Yeah, by all means, go ahead.
• 36:52
  So he takes a picture of my son's finger, and he sends it off, but he said, I'm probably not gonna get an answer till at least the end of the day.
• 37:03
  And sure enough, he by that time I had taken uh the sample to the lab and got the results back, and you know, everything was exactly as he said.
• 37:13
  And he said, okay, the doctor got back to me, and and he said, I was I was right on, but I just wanted to make sure it's always good to run it through another doctor.
• 37:22
  Well, now you don't have to wait a full day.
• 37:27
  Doctors can do this in real time and have a real professional assistant.
• 37:33
  I think that's absolutely incredible.
• 37:36
  We're coming up on another break here.
• 37:38
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• 37:43
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• 37:46
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• 37:47
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• 37:51
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• 37:53
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• 37:54
  Be sure to subscribe, rate the show, and share it.
• 37:58
  Check out the story America Outloud.news and use the code Out Loud for 20% off.
• 38:04
  Sit tight, we'll be right back.
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• 38:37
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  Or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of doctors.
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  Those are the words of number 40.
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• 39:36
  America Outlaw.
• 39:53
  Artificial intelligence is in the medical field.
• 39:56
  It's being integrated.
• 39:58
  Every single day it's being
• 40:00
  Scaled, it's uh it's really really gonna streamline medical care that people get.
• 40:06
  And this means more affordable health care.
• 40:08
  And this is something that uh I think all of us can appreciate at a time when health care is out of control.
• 40:16
  Uh the the amount of waste and fraud and mismanagement, it's terrible, and it's driven up costs, and the Unaffordable Health Care Act has skyrocketed prices for health care.
• 40:32
  I absolutely skyrocketed to where now we need to subsidize it.
• 40:38
  Well, actually, from the very beginning, they were subsidizing it.
• 40:43
  And of course, very famously during the government shutdown, um, part of part of what was um being held hostage by the left was well, we're not gonna open up the government until the subsidies are extended into 2026 and even beyond because people can't afford their premiums are gonna double, and in some cases, I think triple.
• 41:10
  Well, if the subsidies are paying for that much of the medical medical care, it's a broken system.
• 41:20
  It's unaffordable, right?
• 41:22
  If we have to subsidize it with taxpayer money, it's crap care.
• 41:29
  And I'm a firm believer in that.
• 41:33
  As you may or may not know, I don't have traditional medical coverage, medical care.
• 41:42
  Uh the system is broken, it's unaffordable, even with subsidies, it's outrageously priced, and there are a lot better deals out there.
• 41:54
  So even being a self-paid person, uh you're way better off in a lot of cases, unless you're battling a chronic health issue, and in which that case you need health insurance.
• 42:09
  But the health insurance is uh it's it's terrible, it's overpriced.
• 42:15
  The health system charges insurance companies uh an absolute premium for health care that's mediocre in most circumstances.
• 42:27
  The quality of care has definitely gone downhill in recent years.
• 42:33
  I think a big part of that is ever since the Unaffordable Health Care Act passed, it seems like health care really started to go to the wayside, like actual literal health care.
• 42:47
  So artificial intelligence is streamlining, streamlining all of this.
• 42:52
  It's increasing efficiency, it's uh helping to diagnose, helping doctors to diagnose uh certain ailments very quickly, very efficiently.
• 43:06
  It's helping with paperwork, data collection, and uh the way that the patient data is shared among doctors, it's readily available at the fingertips of the doctors, where before this data would get buried in in these ancient outdated data systems, and I still experience this.
• 43:29
  I see it with people all the time.
• 43:32
  Where even within the same healthcare system, the same hospital system, the same brand, so to speak, the data gets lost.
• 43:43
  And it's unacceptable.
• 43:46
  You know, it's kind of like the the old saying, when seconds count, we're only minutes away.
• 43:52
  Well, when your life depends on it, literally, when your life depends on this data being shared between specialists, and that data is not available, or there are big components that are missing, that's a big problem.
• 44:08
  Billing is a nightmare.
• 44:11
  I we've experienced this firsthand.
• 44:15
  Billing is an absolute nightmare when insurance is involved.
• 44:19
  When we self-pay, it's it's not a problem.
• 44:22
  We go in, we literally swipe a credit card or write a check or pay cash or whatever, and it's a done deal.
• 44:31
  When insurance is involved, it's an absolute nightmare.
• 44:35
  Now we do have insurance for our kids.
• 44:38
  Uh, but my wife and I don't have traditional health insurance.
• 44:44
  So anyway, the uh artificial intelligence, here are the ways that it's being predicted in 2026, the way that it's going to transform the medical industry.
• 44:55
  This is from Becker Hospitalreview.com.
• 44:58
  I already highlighted the first two.
• 45:00
  Number three, primary care will get specialist insight, especially in rural and underserved communities.
• 45:09
  So this is really important because primary care physicians don't have access typically to specialists.
• 45:16
  That's why they'll often refer you to a specialist, and a lot of times they'll just scratch their head and be like, well, I don't know.
• 45:23
  This is outside of my area of expertise.
• 45:28
  So now, in especially rural and underserved communities, these primary care physicians have access to specialist insight through artificial intelligence.
• 45:45
  So it says a growing number of leaders believe one of AI's most impactful applications will be expanding specialist level insight to primary care, especially in rural and underserved communities where access to cardiology, endocrinology, rheumatology, and other specialties is severely limited.
• 46:12
  But one that summarizes the challenge well is the commonwealth funds, the state of primary care in the United States.
• 46:19
  November, that was published in November 2025, which states, quote, nearly all rural counties are considered health professional shortage areas, specifically citing a quote, lack of specialists.
• 46:38
  And that's exactly right.
• 47:02
  So when people are critical, they have to ride a helicopter.
• 47:08
  When time is precious, uh, it's an issue, and there are a lot of logistics that have to happen to make those flights happen.
• 47:18
  That those would all be eliminated if people actually had immediate care to specialists.
• 47:26
  You know, 90% of that probably would change, and you could send somebody directly to a hospital that that actually has the specialist.
• 47:37
  But there's a lot of time that passes.
• 47:39
  When you have primary care physicians, you know, they they have to they have to do their due diligence and they run tests and they do the labs and you know, on and on and on.
• 47:49
  And when time is precious, if somebody's bleeding out internally, and you have a primary care physician who's not equipped for that, AI is gonna jump in and uh give immediate access, as if you're speaking to all these uh specialists.
• 48:06
  So it's pretty impressive.
• 48:08
  Number four, AI will show increased ROI return on investment for value-based care models by reducing readmissions, predicting complications and personalizing care.
• 48:22
  This goes back to what I talked about with the medications.
• 48:25
  You know, it's that personalized care.
• 48:29
  And uh, you know, reducing the readmissions is a really important thing, and I see this all the time too, and I'm sure all of you do, where people are readmitted, they're sent home because a doctor's like, well, I think I think it's time to send you home.
• 48:48
  They send them home, they they don't, they're not good at predicting complications.
• 48:54
  They send somebody home prematurely.
• 48:56
  I've seen patients sent home where I'm like, I actually had to advocate for for a church member of mine.
• 49:04
  She physically, physically could not walk across the room.
• 49:12
  She was 67 pounds, was in terrible, terrible, terrible physical condition, lived by herself on the third story.
• 49:25
  There was no elevator.
• 49:28
  She physically couldn't walk across the room, but they said as long as she could stand and shuffle to a chair, that meant that they had to release her.
• 49:39
  I'm like, you are out of your ever-loving mind.
• 49:43
  I actually got angry with the doctor, and I was like, you tell me you look at her, and you tell me that she's going home.
• 49:51
  I want you to sign a paper.
• 49:52
  And I demanded.
• 49:54
  I said, you sign a paper that says you're liable if she falls going up the steps.
• 50:00
  Because she's too weak.
• 50:01
  If she falls and breaks her hip or breaks her back or crushes her skull, I want you to sign the paper that says, I said she must go home.
• 50:13
  She must be released.
• 50:16
  Surprise, surprise, he wouldn't do it.
• 50:19
  So we were able to buy her another day or two.
• 50:23
  But you have to advocate for people, and this is where AI it's going to make much better calls.
• 50:31
  And sometimes eliminating the human element is actually a good thing.
• 50:37
  You know, there are times definitely where you can't eliminate the human element, but sometimes you have to remove it to get rid of that emotional component where a doctor is just, you know, maybe maybe a patient's been on their last nerve and they just want to get rid of them.
• 50:51
  I hate to say it, but it happens.
• 50:55
  And this eliminates that.
• 50:56
  And this will say, no, no, no, no, here's the data.
• 50:58
  The data says uh this is what they need for personalized care.
• 51:03
  It's going to reduce the readmissions, which is a huge burden on costs and time and uh hospital beds and all that stuff.
• 51:15
  So the ROI, the return on investment will move beyond financial metrics to also include measures for quality, safety, efficiency, and experience.
• 51:25
  Said Hartford's Mr.
• 51:28
  Flax.
• 51:31
  Imagine clinicians spending 30% more time with patients because AI handles the administrative burden.
• 51:37
  I've talked about this before.
• 51:39
  I have a brother who's a medical doctor, and he's using AI to be his administrative assistant.
• 51:46
  Basically, essentially his secretary.
• 51:48
  So he outsources the work that he hates doing, and he said, What it did is he's like, I I give 1520 hours of paperwork.
• 52:02
  I hand that over to my AI assistant.
• 52:05
  He said, That means I get 15 to 20 more hours that I get with my patients throughout the week.
• 52:14
  So it's a brilliant way to use artificial intelligence.
• 52:17
  Number five, all governance will move from backroom checkbox to strategic engine.
• 52:25
  So she says if there's a place where leaders speak with near unanity, it's governance.
• 52:32
  An area once treated like infection control, important and steady, but quiet, is about to become urgent and visible.
• 52:42
  AI governance needs to move from reactive to proactive, said Kelly Sr.
• 52:50
  Boyner.
• 52:51
  He described a shift from simple intake processes to comprehensive oversight of drift, risk, transparency, and adverse AI events.
• 53:01
  That's a major tonal shift, he said.
• 53:04
  All right, number six, revenue cycle efficiency will increase as AI fixes thrash upstream.
• 53:13
  Denials have long been one of healthcare's most expensive and demoralizing forms of waste.
• 53:19
  A men.
• 53:22
  Again, all of us can relate to this.
• 53:24
  We've seen denials.
• 53:32
  Sometimes it's just unbelievable.
• 53:34
  Like they don't even have an explanation.
• 53:38
  They deny care.
• 53:40
  So it's been a very expensive and demoralizing form of waste.
• 53:45
  Leaders believe AI will begin correcting this upstream by generating more defensible coding, ensuring medical necessity alignment and resolving prior authorization barriers before they trigger a fight.
• 54:03
  So a lot of this is just uh simply the coding is wrong, or there's a mistake, or the the insurance companies don't like something that's in the coding.
• 54:12
  It's a major issue.
• 54:14
  AI is going to fix that.
• 54:16
  Number seven, the context layer of AI will drive much more robust patient care.
• 54:22
  Ambient AI solved documentation.
• 54:27
  Um the next shift is solving piecemeal context.
• 54:32
  All right.
• 54:33
  So context is very important, and it is challenging when you're a doctor to get all the proper context.
• 54:41
  Well, AI can do the work of 30 uh people easily.
• 54:48
  Number eight, winning AI platforms will be increasingly transparent to secure trust from leaders and clinicians.
• 54:55
  That's where you don't have your mom and pop AI AI bots, right?
• 55:01
  You actually have winning AI platforms that uh are tried, tested, and true.
• 55:07
  There's increased transparency.
• 55:09
  Uh all the problems are gonna be noted, and uh there's gonna be transparency with doctors and patients alike.
• 55:18
  Number nine, patients will begin to choose health systems that improve convenience, experience, access, and trust with AI.
• 55:28
  And that's what's really important.
• 55:30
  Right now, there's such a monopoly.
• 55:34
  And patients will actually get to choose the health systems that benefit them.
• 55:40
  So this is gonna kind of be a um survival of the fittest, so to speak.
• 55:46
  There are gonna be some health systems that collapse that the that go bankrupt.
• 55:51
  And quite frankly, that needs to happen.
• 55:54
  It absolutely needs to happen because people need to improve.
• 55:57
  They need to get better.
• 56:00
  And right now there's no incentive to do that.
• 56:03
  But with AI, it is a make or break.
• 56:06
  100%.
• 56:07
  It is make or break.
• 56:08
  So the people who embrace AI and and and uh who streamline their services and make it efficient, they're gonna be the winners.
• 56:15
  They're gonna come out on top.
• 56:17
  Finally, number 10, healthcare avoids an AI bubble and it right sizes the market.
• 56:24
  So this is not a fad.
• 56:25
  It's not uh something that's a that's like the housing bubble where it's gonna burst.
• 56:30
  It's here to stay.
• 56:32
  And it is 100% survival of the fittest.
• 56:35
  So this is all great news.
• 56:38
  We're gonna see health care get better and better.
• 56:40
  And it needs to happen.
• 56:41
  It's gonna get more affordable.
• 56:44
  And I really hope that our politicians start to draft this stuff into their healthcare overhaul, because it really needs a radical overhaul.
• 56:53
  So this is just the beginning, folks, and I think we're set up for uh magnificent success here in America.
• 57:02
  And that, my friends, is the hidden lightness.
• 57:05
  You can find we're out about my show and get all the latest podcasts if you go to the menu navigation bar at AmericaOutloud.news under our shows or schedule.
• 57:12
  You'll be in the know.
• 57:13
  There is a hidden lightness that shines inside of all of us.
• 57:16
  When there's so much darkness that develops the world, remember that it doesn't take much light to expose that darkness and to ultimately inspire other people.
• 57:24
  Join me in being a light.