Will Patients Have To Pay For Using AI In Their Healthcare?

This article discussed how the author was asked if she wanted to pay $40 extra for additional AI analysis in mammography. In her case a Manhattan radiology clinic offered an AI analysis of their mammogram for an additional $40, not covered by insurance. This scenario was echoed at a clinic in suburban Baltimore, where patients were similarly offered AI-assisted mammography for a $40 fee. These instances mark the initial real-world applications of AI in patient care but also introduce new factors to the healthcare equation.  To make things more complicated, we can’t look for a single, universal solution here. Healthcare systems all over the world are extremely diverse, and there will be no “one size fits all” answer that is equally applicable to the private insurance-based model in the USA to the tax-funded public healthcare in Scandinavian countries. Will AI be cheaper or more expensive than doctors? The question of whether AI will be more cost-effective than traditional medical practices is complex, and the earlier cited examples, where patients were charged extra for AI-assisted mammography, do not necessarily represent a universal pricing model for AI in healthcare. In the future, the cost comparison might not be straightforward and could involve weighing the price of a doctor’s time against the operational costs of an AI algorithm. Consider the scenario of laboratory tests. If AI can provide sufficient analysis at a cost of X, and you need to ...
Source: The Medical Futurist - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: TMF Artificial Intelligence in Medicine AI in healthcare AI in medicine Source Type: blogs