Dr. Oz Pushed for AI Health Care in First Medicare Agency Town Hall

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the new administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), spent much of his first all-staff meeting on Monday promoting the use of artificial intelligence at the agency and praising Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again Initiative,” sources tell WIRED. During the meeting, Oz discussed possibly prioritizing AI avatars over frontline health care workers. Oz claimed that if a patient went to a doctor for a diabetes diagnosis, it would be $100 per hour, while an appointment with an AI avatar would cost considerably less, at just $2 an hour. Oz also claimed that patients have rated the care they’ve received from an AI avatar as equal to or better than a human doctor. (Research suggests patients are actually more skeptical of medical advice given by AI.) Because of technologies like machine learning and AI, Oz claimed, it is now possible to scale “good ideas” in an affordable and fast way. CMS did not immediately respond to a request for ... Read full article.