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'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

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Re: 'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

#111

Post by skohan »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #105
skohan wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that "skilled healthcare" is essentially a cartel which uses artificial scarcity to increase the price. You can see the counter-example in Cuba, which has an incredibly high number of MD's per capita compared to other countries, and achieves very good healthcare results, especially in the context of other metrics of development and economy. There are so pitifully few health care practitioners compared…

Artificial scarcity? Maybe. There aren't but so many households with children that fit inside the venn diagram of can afford med school, has the intellectual capacity and bloody-mindedness to actually finish med school, and is interested in going to med school.

Yes and no. No doubt the medical profession requires talent and rigor, but I think to some extent the hurdles which are placed in front of students who want to become doctors are artificially high to help justify the small number of graduates medical schools put out, which protects the artificially high salaries.

For instance, if you read up on the frankly cruel residency process which doctors are forced to clear in the US, the insane hours are in large part because one of the doctors who was influential in shaping the current practice was an abuser of stimulants.

So I think it's a bit of a "just so" story to assume that the version of the medical profession we have is the best possible version.

And indeed Cuba is a good counter-example to your argument. Unless Cubans are just a lot more clever and resilient on average than Americans for example.

Re: 'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

#112

Post by friendly_deer »

xrd wrote: post #52

Never in a million years could I have imagined there would be something worse than navigating the health care system. Hours of phone calls with deliberately confusing systems, impotent customer service representatives and no choices. It's like the movie Brazil already. Why wouldn't they add AI? Great idea.

Hah. There's literally an AI startup designed to automatically navigate confusing phone trees to get information from health systems:

https://outbound.ai

Re: 'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

#113

Post by antisthenes »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #51
apwell23 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a human also not choose a perfect CV over other options. What does this prove about AI.

You want a perfect candidate not a perfect CV. A perfect CV is highly likely to have lies and was made up based on the job ad, addressing every single requirement bullet.

If I sent out completely truthful CVs, I'd still be working a $15/hr data entry job or whatever.

Obviously you can't fake it forever if you don't have the skills to back it up, but the reason people lie and embellish on CVs is because they know they are reasonably fast learners, so any skills mismatch can be quickly adjusted while on the job. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, etc. etc.

This pretty much became a necessity since ~2005, when IT demand skyrocketed and became mainstream and automatic candidate rejection and filtering became pervasive

Re: 'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

#114

Post by falcolas »

hotpotamus wrote: post #54
falcolas wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how tightly integrated insurance is with what treatments Doctors are allowed to give you, it's absolutely a problem for the entire healthcare system. "Before you go on this medication that's specifically targeted at your symptoms and diagnosis, you must first try and fail these 5 other treatment methods, including a round of anti-anxiety meds and counseling."

I've actually had anti-anxiety medications relieve a whole raft of symptoms that obviously turned out to be anxiety. There are many problems with healthcare systems, but I have to say that lorazepam is really the best drug I ever took; I can see why people become dependent, so I take it quite sparingly.

There's a lot that could be said about how an "anxiety" diagnosis is abused by doctors and insurance companies (especially against women), but in the end it really boils down to one thing:

The medications you're taking should be a determination between you and your Doctor, and not an AI working for your insurance company.

Re: 'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

#115

Post by altairTF »

johnnyworker wrote: post #65
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't the poverty rate consistently decreased?

The gap between rich and poor is growing at increasing pace, just like the gap between rich and mega-rich is. If you went completely hungry yesterday, nearly starved to death, but today you get enough calories that you feel less pain so you can at least stand up and walk around a bit, while you watch your brother stuff his face with so much cake he has to puke 3 times to make room for more, to then play frisbee with…

Do you think rich people should be responsable for others or they have the freedom to get rich and do nothing?

Re: 'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

#116

Post by rchaud »

staunton wrote: post #58
LegibleCrimson wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that one of the big hype phrases is that it will decrease costs of healthcare and lower people's bills, but even if you lower the cost, there is no actual incentive to lower patient bills, so the extra value simply goes to owners and investors rather than the end consumer.

Would you rather be treated in a modern hospital or one from 50 years ago? Would you choose the historical hospital if it charged you the same fraction of median income as it did back then?

Ceteris paribus is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

If the 50 year old hospital has an available operating room and the modern hospital does not, I'm going there. I won't have a choice if the treatment needed is urgent.

Re: 'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

#117

Post by rchaud »

cmiles74 wrote: post #74
snowpid wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" For those thinking that AI will reduce healthcare costs by improving efficiency, I point you to the 'electronic medical records' hype of 15 years ago. Are per capita healthcare costs any lower now? " Can you elaborate? In countries like Denmark or Estonia electronic medical records are well used among doctors and patients.

In the US, the cost of health care has not significantly decreased since the introduction of rules, regulations and government money pushing healthcare organizations to implement and use EHR systems. I would say all of the intervention by the US federal government has made everything much worse. The EHR vendors (I'm looking at you, Epic) managed to consume the money thrown at the problem and yet have only moderately…

Precisely, and for this reason, AI will be the snake oil panacea, just as computerization of records were. Both will be important, but the size of the contract will be based on the "transformative" messaging around the pitch. The real value as you've said will accrue to the consultancies and vendors as it always has, so even without the enormous compute bills for AI tools, prices will keep going up.

Re: 'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

#118

Post by RecycledEle »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #105
skohan wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that "skilled healthcare" is essentially a cartel which uses artificial scarcity to increase the price. You can see the counter-example in Cuba, which has an incredibly high number of MD's per capita compared to other countries, and achieves very good healthcare results, especially in the context of other metrics of development and economy. There are so pitifully few health care practitioners compared…

Artificial scarcity? Maybe. There aren't but so many households with children that fit inside the venn diagram of can afford med school, has the intellectual capacity and bloody-mindedness to actually finish med school, and is interested in going to med school.

> There aren't but so many households with children that fit inside the venn diagram of can afford med school, has the intellectual capacity and bloody-mindedness to actually finish med school, and is interested in going to med school.

That is the artificial scarcity he was referring to.

There is no reason to lump all medicine together in a MD degree /certification.

Why not have one certification for each common problem?

Re: 'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

#119

Post by sporkland »

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #23

I'm not sure I understand why AI is supposed to make anything better, at least under the regulatory regime we have right now. 1. AI doesn't do anything new. It's just human thinking done better in the best case scenario. So the plus side is that we may come up with ideas that a human might have come up with 10-15 years later. However, a lack of ideas is not the problem we face at all. We have solutions to nearly ever…

> I'm not sure I understand why AI is supposed to make anything better

It's probably because you don't understand how the world works. Most things aren't revolutions they just allow us to good things more often and cheaper and so create wide spread "wealth". In this case imagine a doctor who isn't magically better than all doctors combined, but instead is the best of all doctors and specialists and performs very consistently and is available on 24/7 basis. It didn't revolutionize everything but I imagine the collective impact on health and lifespans will be tremendous.

Re: 'AI' Is Supercharging Our Broken Healthcare System's Worst Tendencies

#120

Post by userinanother »

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #23

I'm not sure I understand why AI is supposed to make anything better, at least under the regulatory regime we have right now. 1. AI doesn't do anything new. It's just human thinking done better in the best case scenario. So the plus side is that we may come up with ideas that a human might have come up with 10-15 years later. However, a lack of ideas is not the problem we face at all. We have solutions to nearly ever…

“ Expect AI to continue spreading into more legal gray areas as companies take advantage of the lack of clarity on legal responsibility to raid and pillage our economy and societies.”

This is exactly what’s happening, it doesn’t even need ai just an algorithm that allows companies to have an excuse for denying care. If there is no human in the loop nobody is responsible. You can’t send an AI to jail so they can just abuse the system.

Judges need to force companies to stop using algorithms and allow approve all expenses when an algorithm is found to be illegal or potentially illegal and that will end the practice quickly. The burden of proof should be on the algorithm writer to show its legal

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