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Jennifer D. Oliva | The Conversation
Over the past decade, health insurance companies have increasingly embraced the use of artificial intelligence algorithms. Unlike doctors and hospitals, which use AI to help diagnose and treat patients, health insurers use these algorithms to decide whether to pay for health care treatments and services that are recommended by a given patient’s physicians.
One of the most common examples is prior authorization, which is when your doctor needs to
receive payment approval from your insurance company before providing you care. Many insurers use an algorithm to decide whether the requested care is “medically necessary” and should be covered.
These AI systems also help insurers decide how much care a patient is entitled to — for example, how many days of hospital care a patient can receive after surgery.
If an insurer declines to pay for a treatment your doctor recommends, you usually have three options. You can try to appeal the decision, but that process can take a lot of time, money and expert help. Only 1 in 500 claim denials are appealed. You can agree to a different treatment that your insurer will cover. Or you can pay for the recommended treatment yourself, which is often not realistic because of high health care costs.
As a legal scholar who studies health law and policy, I’m concerned about how insurance algorithms affect people’s health. Like with AI algorithms used by doctors and hospitals, these tools can...
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