Tag Archives: health

When Certuma’s Messaging Seems Contradictory: “AI Doctor” or “Physician-Verified”?

I don’t have access to Forbes, so I’m relying on this LinkedIn message from Certuma:

“We raised $10M in seed funding led by 8VC to build the first FDA-approved AI doctor.”

The way that sentence is worded, it sounds like the goal is to have the FDA approve a doctor who can…well, doctor. Like my fictional Dr. Jones. (See the 2013 version in tymshft.)

““I don’t mind answering the question,” replied the friendly voice, “and I hope you don’t take my response the wrong way, but I’m not really a person as you understand the term. I’m actually an application within the software package that runs the medical center. But my programmers want me to tell you that they’re really happy to serve you, and that Stanford sucks.” The voice paused for a moment. “I’m sorry, Edith. You have to forgive the programmers – they’re Berkeley grads.””

But Certuma’s website tells a more cautionary story in which the “AI doctor” is NOT in control.

“Certified clinical decisions at machine speed. Physician-verified and fully auditable.”

And the workflow indicates that this “doctor” is more like an intern, or even a student.

“Certuma routes every in-scope plan through physician verification. That workflow is the point: fast turnaround without removing accountability….

“Red flags, contraindications, interaction checks, scope limits, and uncertainty thresholds run through the deterministic verification layer. If something is emergent or out of scope, the system escalates instead of guessing.

“Clinicians see structured intake, highlighted risks, and a draft plan with supporting evidence. They approve, edit, or escalate; changes are captured with reason codes and a durable audit trail.”

Now there is clearly some benefit in having the bots grind out the plan, provided that the bots don’t hallucinate. There are potential time savings, and a real doctor reviews the final results.

But an “AI doctor” who can doctor independently is NOT on the horizon.

At least not yet.

What If Software Tools Identified Errors Instead of Making Them?

As you know, I’m tired of the simplistic “we use AI” marketing messaging. One reason is because when prospects hear “we use AI,” they may respond with “Oh, that technology that hallucinates.” This is NOT a good selling point.

But what if your tool, whether it is artificial intelligence or a thousand Third World workers, could actually IDENTIFY errors?

For example, this is the claim that PracticeTek’s ChiroTouch makes:

“Reviews chart notes and billing codes automatically

“Flags missing documentation and risky billing in real time

“Creates audit-ready, consistent records”

It’s nice to clean up messes before they become part of your permanent record (1:04).

Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Must Remain Current

I knew that the set of medical billing codes—Current Procedural Terminology, or CPT—is critically important for health providers, insurance plans, and everyone else in the medical-industrial complex.

I didn’t know that the set of codes changes. Every year.

The CPT 2026 codes were announced in September 2025 and took effect in January 2026.

“The open and rigorous process maintained by the independent CPT Editorial Panel with broad input from the health care community, government, and industry produced 418 total changes reflected in CPT 2026 code set, including 84 deletions and 46 revisions in addition to the 288 new codes.

“Key updates included in the CPT 2026 code set are new codes for digital health services like remote patient monitoring, medical services involving hearing devices and augmented intelligence (AI), and a comprehensive update of codes for leg revascularization.”

Hope the billing coders are ready…although these days the coders may be AI. Again, hope the billing coders are ready.

Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare, A Qualified View

As I’ve noted before, healthcare is a pioneering user of artificial intelligence, although (hopefully) under robust controls to maintain accuracy and preserve HIPAA-level privacy.

And a number of companies poured $125 million into Qualified Health to advance AI in healthcare.

Why?

“We are living through a generational shift, one where AI doesn’t just augment how organizations work but fundamentally transforms them from the inside out,” said Mohamad Makhzoumi, Co-CEO of NEA, who will join Qualified Health’s Board of Directors in conjunction with the financing. “From NEA’s nearly five decades of company-building experience, we believe the organizations shaping the next era of healthcare innovation will be those helping health systems reimagine every administrative and clinical workflow from the ground up, and Qualified Health is exactly that company. We are thrilled to lead this financing and to partner with Justin and team to accelerate healthcare’s AI transformation and shape the future of healthcare enterprises across the country.”

“Health systems today are operating under extraordinary pressure, from rising labor costs to tightening reimbursement, while managing increasing complexity in patient care,” said Jared Kesselheim, MD, Managing Partner at Transformation Capital. “What stood out to us about Qualified Health is that the team approaches this work as medical care specialists, with a deep understanding of the realities health systems face every day. That perspective allows them to identify where AI can create meaningful clinical and operational impact. We’re excited to partner with Justin and the Qualified Health team as they help leading health systems navigate this next phase of healthcare.”

The United States’ 16 Critical Infrastructure Sectors

I was working with these sectors back when I was at MorphoTrak.

“There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof. Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21): Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience advances a national policy to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure. This directive supersedes Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7.”

The sectors are:

See:

https://www.cisa.gov/topics/critical-infrastructure-security-and-resilience/critical-infrastructure-sectors

https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/presidential-policy-directive-ppd-21-critical-infrastructure-security-and

Water is (literally) critical and needs to smarten up

Ambient Clinical Intelligence in Healthcare

Another topic raised by Nadaa Taiyab during today’s SoCal Tech Forum meeting was ambient clinical intelligence. See her comments on how AI benefits diametrically opposing healthcare entities here.

There are three ways that a health professional can create records during, and/or after, a patient visit.

  • Typing. The professional has their hands on the keyboard during the meeting, which doesn’t make a good impression on the patient.
  • Structured dictation. The professional can actually look at the patient, but the dictation is unnatural. As Bredebot characterizes it: “where you have to speak specific commands like ‘Period’ or ‘New Paragraph.’”
  • Ambient clinical intelligence.

Here is how DeepScribe defines ambient clinical intelligence:

“Ambient clinical intelligence, or ACI, is advanced, AI-powered voice recognizing technology that quietly listens in on clinical encounters and aids the medical documentation process by automating medical transcription and note taking. This all-encompassing technology has the ability to totally transform the lives of clinicians, and thus healthcare on every level.”

Like any generative AI model, ambient clinical intelligence has to provide my four standard benefits: accuracy, ease of use, security, and speed.

  • Accuracy is critically important in any health application, since inaccurate coding could literally affect life or death.
  • Ease of use is of course the whole point of ambient clinical intelligence, since it replaces harder-to-use methods.
  • Security and privacy are necessary when dealing with personal health information (PHI).
  • Speed is essential also. As Taiyab noted elsewhere in her talk, the work is increasing and the workforce not increasing as rapidly.

But if the medical professional and patient benefit from the accuracy, ease of use, security, and speed of ambient clinical intelligence, we all win.

Google Gemini.

Health AI Battle Bots

In this morning’s SoCal Tech Forum meeting, Nadaa Taiyab noted that generative AI can aid both sides of healthcare funding battles.

  • Medical providers and patients benefit when AI speeds authorization approvals.
  • Insurance companies benefit when AI speeds authorization denials.

Who will win?

(Also see my related post on ambient clinical intelligence in healthcare.)

Justin Welsh’s Purple Squirrel Story

While I talk about wildebeests, iguanas, wombats, and friction ridge-equipped koalas, Justin Welsh talks about squirrels.

Purple squirrels.

Google Gemini,.

Welsh explains what a purple squirrel is:

“A purple squirrel is a candidate so rare and perfectly matched to what you need that finding one feels impossible. Someone who checks every single box, including boxes you didn’t even know you cared about.”

Then Welsh provided an example of a purple squirrel, a man named Sagar Patel who worked for him at PatientPop.

On paper pyramids

At the time PatientPop had less than $40,000 in annual revenue, so it didn’t have a huge marketing department. It didn’t even have Bredemarket as a product marketing consultant because Bredemarket didn’t exist yet. And anyway, at the time I knew next to nothing about PatientPop’s healthcare-centered hungry people, physicians who needed to attract prospects and clients via then-current search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.

Google Gemini.

Patel could have launched into a complex, feature-laden SEO discussion, but his target physicians would have responded, “So what?” Doctors want to doctor, not obsess over choosing trailing keywords…and understand the benefits of a solution immediately.

So Patel, without the resources of a marketing department, took another approach.

“So Sagar grabbed some notebook paper and drew five sides of a pyramid. He labeled each one, describing his ‘5 sides of local SEO for healthcare providers,’ and then taped them all together.

“He made himself a little paper pyramid to use in his sales pitches.”

Google Gemini. My prompt asked Nano Banana to create a “realistic” picture.

Was Patel’s paper pyramid an effective sales tool for PatientPop? Read Welsh’s article to find out.

What’s your paper pyramid?

Too many companies wait months for the perfect marketing solution instead of doing something NOW and refining it later.

Bredemarket’s different. I ask, then I act.

I ask, then I act.

Once I’ve set my compass, I get my clients a draft within days. Last week alone I turned out drafts for two clients, moving them forward so the content is available to their prospects and clients.

With my suggested schedule for short content—three day drafts, three day reviews, three day redrafts—your new content can become your online “secret salesperson” within two weeks or less.

Don’t believe me? This post alone is chock-full of links to other Bredemarket posts and Bredemarket pages, all of which are functioning as “secret salespeople” for me every single day.

If you want secret salespeople to work for you, talk to me and we’ll devise a plan to improve your product marketing awareness RIGHT NOW.

This is Why You Should Avoid Acronyms

So an article came across my eyes that begins with the words “Minnesota DHS.”

The full title? “Minnesota DHS Reports Access-Related Data Breach.”

Now anyone reading that article over the weekend was probably very confused, since the death of Alex Pretti isn’t exactly a DATA breach.

And, of course, Minnesota doesn’t have a “department of homeland security.”

It does, however, have a Department of Human Services…and THAT was what was breached.

“A single user inappropriately accessed private data within the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) ecosystem, potentially impacting 303,965 individuals, officials report.”

This was not a hack per se, but a case in which a legitimate person accessed something they shouldn’t have accessed. Certainly a breach, and the person’s access was terminated.

But nobody died.