Enlarge / A nursing residence resident is pushed alongside a hall by a nurse. (credit score: Getty | Marijan Murat)
Medical health insurance corporations can not use algorithms or synthetic intelligence to find out care or deny protection to members on Medicare Benefit plans, the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers (CMS) clarified in a memo despatched to all Medicare Benefit insurers.
The memo—formatted like an FAQ on Medicare Benefit (MA) plan guidelines—comes simply months after sufferers filed lawsuits claiming that UnitedHealth and Humana have been utilizing a deeply flawed, AI-powered device to disclaim care to aged sufferers on MA plans. The lawsuits, which search class-action standing, middle on the identical AI device, known as nH Predict, utilized by each insurers and developed by NaviHealth, a UnitedHealth subsidiary.
In line with the lawsuits, nH Predict produces draconian estimates for a way lengthy a affected person will want post-acute care in amenities like expert nursing properties and rehabilitation facilities after an acute harm, sickness, or occasion, like a fall or a stroke. And NaviHealth staff face self-discipline for deviating from the estimates, regardless that they typically do not match prescribing physicians’ suggestions or Medicare protection guidelines. As an illustration, whereas MA plans usually present as much as 100 days of coated care in a nursing residence after a three-day hospital keep, utilizing nH Predict, sufferers on UnitedHealth’s MA plan not often keep in nursing properties for greater than 14 days earlier than receiving cost denials, the lawsuits allege.
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