Sponsored by: Zingage
We’re turning home care into software.
$300B is authorized each year for care at home. $90B never gets delivered. Zingage is the AI operator closing that gap — an always-on back office running 10,200 visits and 11,000 conversations a day for home care agencies nationwide.
Welcome back, everyone —
Here’s what we’re covering this week:
OpenAI enters the clinician arena
50% of US healthcare orgs have implemented genAI
Medicare’s AI experiment backfires?
17 new tools/partnerships, 14 funding updates, new AI jobs & link-worthy content
Read time: 5 minutes
Our Picks ✨
Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…
1/
OpenAI enters the clinician arena
OpenAI is pushing deeper into healthcare with the launch of ChatGPT for Clinicians, a free AI tool for physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and pharmacists in the US. Designed for everyday clinical workflows, it supports documentation, medical research, care planning, and tasks like drafting referral letters and patient instructions. It also includes clinical search across peer reviewed sources, reusable workflows, and options for HIPAA compliant use.
Alongside it, OpenAI introduced HealthBench Professional, a benchmark built from real clinician conversations to evaluate performance across care consults, documentation, and research. In testing, its latest model outperformed competing systems and even physicians on these tasks.
OpenAI is clearly leaning into healthcare, and its timely as clinician AI usage has more than doubled, with 81% of physicians now using these tools in practice. That said, it’s a crowded space. Platforms like OpenEvidence have built a strong foothold (~40% of US doctors), and incumbents like UpToDate, DoxGPT etc also have traction. The real question is what wins: OpenAI’s distribution and scale, or the trust and stickiness of tools clinicians already rely on. Either way, more competition here is a good thing for the healthcare system. (link)
2/
50% of US healthcare orgs have implemented genAI
AI in healthcare is being deployed at scale. This is confirmed by a new McKinsey survey which shows 50% of US healthcare organizations have implemented gen AI, up from 25% in 2023, and more than 80% have already rolled out at least one use case to end users.
Where it is being used is becoming clearer. Administrative workflows like prior auth, documentation, and call center operations are seen as the biggest opportunity, but clinical productivity is leading adoption, with over half of care organizations using AI for tasks like note generation, chart summarization, and care planning.
The next wave or phase is agentic AI. About 19% of organizations have implemented early versions, while 51% are actively testing systems that can coordinate multi-step workflows.
Leaders cite integration with EHRs, limited internal capabilities, and risk concerns around bias, security, and compliance as the biggest barriers, even as 82% still expect a positive ROI — leaving the bottleneck to now be execution. (link)(linkedin)
3/
Medicare’s AI experiment backfires?
A Medicare pilot designed to cut waste is running into some trouble. The WISeR model, which uses AI driven prior authorizations to flag “low value” care, launched in six states this year, Arizona, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Ohio, Texas, and Washington. But less than five months in, Washington St is raising concerns.
A report from Senator Maria Cantwell calls the system an “administrative labyrinth,” with hospitals saying approvals that once took days are now taking 4 to 8 weeks. That is well beyond CMS targets of 1 day for urgent cases and 3 days for routine care. Some providers are even adding staff just to manage this spike in prior auth requests.
The goal of reducing waste in Medicare is valid, but this rollout highlights how quickly things can go sideways when incentives and execution are misaligned. Adding AI on top of prior authorization does not automatically make the system better, it can just make it faster and more complex. If these early signals hold across other states, it suggests the real problem is not a lack of technology, but the structure of the system itself. (link)
TOGETHER WITH SUPERDIAL
RCM teams still spending hours on payer calls? SuperDial automates the entire workflow with AI voice agents. 👉️ Click here to learn more!
Tools & Partnerships 🔧
Latest on business, consumer, and clinical healthcare AI tools and partnerships…
TOOLS
Utah AI prescribing pilot faces pushback: State regulators urged a pause on Doctronic’s medication refill program, citing safety concerns and lack of medical board approval although the company says the process is safer than current status quo. (link)
OpenAI launches GPT-5.5: The new model tops benchmarks across reasoning, coding, and agentic tasks, positioning itself as a new frontier leader with improved efficiency and lower cost. (link)
Hippocratic AI debuts two new voice agents for care access: New tools automate patient intake, scheduling, and nurse workflows using coordinated LLM systems integrated into clinical operations. (link)
Ambience expands beyond documentation: The company shared a roadmap focused on redesigning clinical workflows, revenue integrity, and care orchestration with health system partners. (link)
Lumeris upgrades AI with real-time voice: New native audio capabilities enable more natural, real-time patient conversations within its AI-powered primary care platform. (link)
Infinitus launches no-code AI agent builder: Infinitus Studio lets healthcare teams design and deploy agents without coding, achieving faster deployment and higher accuracy. (link)
Spring Health launches AI mental health guide: The new AI-led experience shows measurable improvements in anxiety and depression, with stronger outcomes for higher-risk patients. (link)
Assort brings AI agents to dermatology: Specialty-trained voice agents help triage complex dermatology requests, boosting appointment volume and operational efficiency. (link)
Clinicians still outperform AI scribes on note quality: A study found human-written clinical notes scored higher across all quality metrics, reinforcing the need for human oversight. (link)
New unified patient model, APOLLO: A new foundation model trained on 25B clinical events creates longitudinal “virtual patient” representations across modalities. (link)
Luma expands operational AI workflows: New features automate end-to-end tasks like no-show recovery and care gap closure, building on millions of hours saved for health systems. (link)
NASA explores drone organ delivery: The agency is testing drones to improve reliability in organ transport and reduce losses in the transplant system. (link)
PARTNERSHIPS
Merck + Google Cloud: Merck partnered with Google Cloud in a deal worth up to $1B to deploy agentic AI across R&D, manufacturing, and commercial operations. (link)
Optum.ai + Labcorp: Optum.ai partnered with Labcorp to apply AI across lab operations, including workflow automation, patient engagement, and prior authorization processes. (link)
Walmart + Health AI vendors: Walmart expanded its Better Care Services platform with various partners (ex. Berry Street, Curai Health, Twin Health, etc) to support weight management through virtual care, nutrition, and AI-driven insights. (link)
Keck Medicine of USC + Tempus AI: Keck Medicine partnered with Tempus to deploy AI tools for clinical testing, trial matching, and precision medicine research. (link)
Providence + Epic: Providence deployed 12 Epic AI tools across clinical and revenue cycle workflows as part of its systemwide modernization effort. (link)
Deal Desk 💰
Spotlight on latest capital raises, M&A, and investments…
FUNDING
Anthropic, an SF-based AI model company, will raise $5B from Amazon and at least $10 billion from Google. Amazon has the option to buy $20B more and Google with an additional $30B. (link)
AcuityMD, the AI platform for MedTech, raised $80M in a Series C at a $955M valuation led by StepStone Group with participation from Benchmark Capital, Redpoint Ventures, ICONIQ Growth, and Atreides Management. (link)
Courier Health, a healthtech company for managing patient experiences, raised a $50M Series B funding round led by Oak HC/FT. (link)
Tava Health, a tech-driven mental health services provider, raised a $40M Series C funding round led by Centana Growth Partners. (link)
Squaremind, a Paris‑based "physical AI" startup focused on skin exams, raised $18m led by Sonder Capital. (link)
Amperos Health, an AI RCM solution, raised a $16M Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with continued support from Uncork Capital and Neo. (link)
Almanac Health, a clinical AI platform and evidence-based clinical decision support company, raised $10M in a seed round led by F-Prime, with participation from General Catalyst and Lightspeed. (link)
Sleuth Insights, an SF-based decision platform for pharmaceutical and biotech, raised $8M in seed funding led by Bison Ventures. (link)
TriFetch, an end-to-end automation layer for independent specialty clinics, raised a $1.9M pre-seed round led by Nexus Venture Partners. (link)
MERGERS & ACQUITIONS
IKS Health + TruBridge: IKS Health acquired TruBridge to expand its AI-enabled EHR and revenue cycle capabilities, strengthening its footprint in rural healthcare and supporting more than 4,000 organizations. (link)
Covera Health + Medmo: Covera Health and Medmo combined to create an end-to-end diagnostic imaging platform that integrates AI-driven quality insights with care coordination across imaging workflows. (link)
ŌURA + Galen AI: ŌURA acquired Galen AI’s technology and team to enhance its AI-powered health platform, integrating medical records and wearable data for more personalized health insights. (link)
ModMed + Bonsai Health: ModMed acquired Bonsai Health to expand its AI-powered platform with agentic AI for front-office automation alongside clinical documentation tools. (link)
Gyde + Benavest: Gyde acquired Benavest to expand its AI-enabled brokerage platform and grow its national network across ACA and Medicare markets. (link)
Other Relevant News 🔍
News, podcasts, blogs, tweets, resources, etc…
AI Job Opportunities 💼
Explore our AI Job Board or contact us to feature roles in our newsletter…
Visuals of the Week 📸
Funny memes, cool pics, and interesting data from around the web…
That’s it for this week friends! Back to reading — I’ll see you next week.
Stay classy,
PS. I write this newsletter for you. So if you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to reply to this email and let me know
How was this week's newsletter? Tap your choice below👇
