Samwise Healthcare IT Newsletter
Thursday, July 16, 2026
New AI Risks: ‘Cognitive Spoofing’ and Fake Expertise
Dr. David Kirk, chief medical officer at Regard, warns that “cognitive spoofing” — AI projecting the appearance of expertise without the experience and judgment clinicians develop over years of practice — is healthcare's next major AI challenge. The concern: polished AI responses can mask knowledge gaps in trainees, making it harder for attending physicians to spot where instruction is needed. “We have been so focused on AI getting facts wrong that we missed the bigger problem: AI helping people fake expertise,” Kirk said. Patients are also arriving at appointments with AI-generated diagnoses from consumer tools, requiring longer and more nuanced clinical conversations. Kirk calls for continuous AI governance after deployment, with transparency to patients about when AI contributed to care decisions.
Sources: Healthcare IT News Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
A Big Challenge for Healthcare AI: Simplify the Stack
Patrice Bordron, chief digital information officer at Community Health Systems in Franklin, Tennessee, argues that interoperability — not AI itself — is “the foundation that enables virtually everything else we hope to accomplish.” Health systems have accumulated sprawling application portfolios that fragment data, duplicate workflows, and expand cyberattack surfaces. Community Health Systems is pursuing an application standardization initiative intended to create a more connected and consistent digital ecosystem. Bordron warns executives against buying another application for every new problem, calling instead for evaluating whether core platforms can fill the gap. His conclusion: “Healthcare's challenge is no longer digitization — it is simplification.”
Sources: Healthcare IT News Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
House Ways & Means Markup Targets Prior Auth Abuse, Rural RPM Access
The House Ways and Means Committee marked up a package of health care legislation on July 15. Bills include prior authorization reform for Medicare Advantage — targeting a process where nearly 81% of denied authorizations that are appealed are later overturned — and legislation to expand remote patient monitoring reimbursement in rural and underserved communities. Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) said the bills share a goal to “put the American people in charge of their own health care.” Additional bills address nursing home visitation rights during emergencies, rural anesthesia payment disparities, long-term acute care access, Medicare Advantage insurer financial transparency, and price transparency enforcement.
Sources: Ways and Means Committee Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Neko Health Raises $700M to Expand AI Full-Body Health Scans to the U.S.
Neko Health, the Swedish preventive health company cofounded by Spotify founder Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne, has raised $700 million in Series C funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners and O.G. Venture Partners co-led the round, with participation from General Catalyst, Atomico, Lakestar, and investors including Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. Neko's flagship product is a 60-minute, radiation-free full-body scan that analyzes skin health, metabolic health, stroke and heart attack risk factors, and pre-diabetes biomarkers, with a physician consultation immediately after. The company plans to expand into the U.S. for the first time, with New York as an initial target. Nilsonne said “the vast majority of our members return after their first scan, and when they do, their health markers move in the right direction.”
Sources: MobiHealthNews Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Lyric Acquires Concert to Expand AI-Enabled Precision Medicine Payments
Healthcare payment intelligence company Lyric has acquired Concert, a precision medicine payment technology company, integrating Concert's policy intelligence into the Lyric42 platform. Lyric helps health plans analyze claims for accuracy and compliance before payment; Concert works with plans, providers, labs, and health tech vendors to manage diagnostic and genetic testing payment accuracy. Ravi Umarji, Lyric president and CFO, said Concert's “ground-up approach to synchronize human- and machine-readable policy will plug into health plan workflows through the Lyric42 platform,” shifting the model “from reactive enforcement at disconnected checkpoints to shared standards.” The companies had an established partnership since 2023.
Sources: MobiHealthNews Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
CIOs Explain How IT Departments Are Changing in the AI Era
CIOs at health systems across the U.S. say IT is shifting from software deployment to co-owning clinical outcomes. Tony Damron, CIO and EVP of Pikeville Medical Center in Kentucky, said when his team launched an Epic Ambient AI pilot with roughly 30 providers this summer, the conversation was “how do we redesign workflows and measure impact on documentation burden and patient face-time” — not just deployment logistics. Damron added that governance has become “a core IT deliverable, not an afterthought,” especially at a rural, independent health system without a large data science team. Both Damron and Garrett Olin, CIO of Shasta Community Health Center, cited agentic AI as their boldest bet over the next two years, targeting automation across clinical, revenue cycle, and finance functions.
Sources: Becker's Hospital Review Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
CMS Proposes Medicare Ban on Third-Party Remote Patient Monitoring
CMS is proposing a Medicare payment ban for remote patient monitoring services delivered by third-party vendors, part of the 2027 physician fee schedule released July 14. Under the proposal, only clinical staff employed by the billing practice — not contracted third parties — could furnish RPM services. CMS cited a 2024 HHS OIG report finding 43% of Medicare RPM enrollees in 2022 missed at least one required service component, and noted RPM payments jumped 31% from $408 million in 2023 to $536 million in 2024. The Alliance for Connected Care's executive director warned the proposal “ends RPM, both high quality and low quality.” Comments are due Sept. 14; most provisions would take effect Jan. 1, 2027.
Sources: Becker's Hospital Review Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Hacking Group Claims Billion-Record Breach, Says It Won’t Target Hospitals
A cybercriminal group calling itself The Syndicate claims to have breached Israeli fintech firm Nayax and stolen more than 1 billion payment card records, while telling DataBreaches.net it steers clear of attacking hospitals. “We don't target hospitals or critical infrastructure, anything that directly endangers lives,” the group said, adding its focus is financial services, technology and retail companies with significant capital. The episode adds to a growing catalog of extortion groups publicly describing rules against hitting hospitals and other life-safety systems, even as federal officials and healthcare cybersecurity professionals continue working to disrupt ransomware and data-extortion activity that does reach patient care environments.
Sources: Becker's Hospital Review Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Nicklaus Children’s $75M Epic Project Isn’t Just About IT
Nicklaus Children's Health System, the Miami-based pediatric system, is replacing its Oracle Health (formerly Cerner) EHR with Epic in a project estimated at about $75 million including training, software, and implementation fees. CEO Matthew Love frames the investment as strategic growth capital rather than a pure IT upgrade. The rollout will affect more than 5,000 physicians, nurses, and staff across three hospital campuses, with a single “big bang” go-live set for May 1, 2027. Love's primary value driver: seamless NICU transfer records. “In the middle of the night, when that baby needs to be transferred out of the NICU at 2 a.m., the electronic health record will be seamless,” he said. CIO Michelle Hurtarte owns the project.
Sources: Becker's Hospital Review Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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