Page 27 - Green Builder Magazine May-June 2019 Issue

A Populist Robo-Defender of Healthcare?

If we can’t have decent, affordable healthcare, how about an AI system that plays

by the same rules as insurance adjusters?

NSTEAD OF PAYING FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DIAGNOSES, what relentless and redundant questions about overbilling.
we really need is a robo-caller that’s the nemesis of claims adjusters “Mr. Jackson, this is Scorpion AI calling. Why was Mr. Lemond charged
everywhere. $370.50 for arthroscopic pre-analysis, when no arthroscopic procedure was
While dodging the crowds at CES with my friend and colleague Craig rendered?”
Coale last month, we were whisked into a traveling sideshow of sorts: a “Who is this? Why are you calling me at the gym?”
I converted RV with a full-time virtual health assistant on board. “Addison,” “Mr. Jackson, after 2,007 calls today to 380 employees at your electronic
as they call her, watches the inhabitants 24/7 from the comfort of her pixel- outsourcing service in Karachi, Pakistan, I have established that you are the
born universe, and comments on things in our universe that she observes: source of the error on Mr. Lemond’s bill. I apologize for calling you at the gym,
“Did you know you’re favoring one hip?” “I don’t think you remembered your but as CEO of Acme Insurance, I’m sure you understand that I will proceed until
medications, Dora”—those sort of personal comments—the kind that, if you Mr. Lemond’s bill has been corrected.”
were a teenager instead of an octogenarian, might wither your soul. “I’m hanging up.” (click)
May I suggest, however, that the whole model of AI-based home The gym attendant approaches Jackson.
healthcare is not a quantum leap forward at all. Instead of helping people “Mr. Jackson, it’s for you; it’s urgent.”
obtain affordable and reasonable healthcare, it’s simply another back door “Yes?”
Self service. Now being rolled out at channel for insurance claims adjusters and pharmaceutical barons to identify “Mr. Jackson, Please do not hang up. Mr. Lemond simply wishes to have this
Sam’s Clubs, this health station offers high-risk individuals, blame you for your own health problems (and thus avoid bill for $370.50 removed from his account. By stating ‘Scorpion Approval,’ you
an early glimpse at what could become paying for the remedies), hook you on risky and expensive drugs, and make can grant me temporary administrator authority and you will receive no more
the only affordable healthcare option
left to aging Americans. you feel like you’re getting personal care—when in fact your chances of calls on this matter.”
getting an accurate diagnosis and good care keep vanishing down an ever- “Damn it.”
closing rabbit hole. Why not? If some of the same geniuses who want to mine our personal
My family doctor has told me repeatedly to stop looking at the internet to data and sell it to corporations would do something to help
identify the meanings of various aches, pains or “symptoms.” the rest of us, I bet a lot of Americans would be willing
“You’ll just end up scared out of your mind about the wrong not only to get behind, but to dump GoFundMe
things,” he says. “And no matter what’s wrong with you, the money into developing and commercializing
anxiety compounds the illness.” a populist innovation, instead of the usual
What I didn’t see at the CES show, however, were health squeeze on the already squeezed. GB
devices actually designed to empower patients, not
insurance corporations.
Sure, you can monitor your own blood pressure or check One last thing. Imagine
your cholesterol, or make sure you got your requisite how fast insurers will pay
10,000 steps per day, but there’s nothing to fight for up when an AI consumer
advocate is on their tail.
your right to affordable, effective health care.
With each new iteration of virtual health care aids,
we voluntarily surrender data that’s ripe for abuse. Do
we really need more AI surveillance? What if a client
neglects her Fitbit routine for a month, just before
having a stroke? Couldn’t the client’s insurer, who was
discounting her policy based on exercise, say that she
misled them? How about that pattern of high blood pressure
she noticed—but did not report to her doctor? What if she dies,
and her life insurer obtains this data, and says her death was the
fault of negligence, and thus her surviving spouse gets nothing...?
Next year, I’d like to see a new breed of home healthcare in -
novation, an artificial intelligence that outthinks insurance claims
adjusters and makes mincemeat out of overpaid insurance CEOs.
Best of all, it answers phone parrying with
robo-calling, calling the
CEO at home, in the
gym or at his beach
house, asking simple,

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