AI agents have arrived in healthcare — and one health system uses them to automate several functions previously done by humans.
Charleston, S.C.-based MUSC Health has deployed AI agents from healthcare software company Notable to execute 40% of prior authorizations without human involvement. What often took about 30 minutes of manual work is now completed by AI in about one.
“At the end of the day, it’s about access,” MUSC Health Chief Digital Transformation Officer Crystal Broj told Becker’s at the HIMSS25 conference in Las Vegas. “Because if a patient gets their authorization they can get to the MRI so they can be treated faster. Sometimes those authorizations get backed up because there’s only so much manpower. So that’s probably my most exciting [project] from an ROI perspective.”
Upon notification that a patient needs a prior authorization, the AI carries out the needed work in the payer portal then, if the treatment or screening is approved, puts the code into Epic so the patient can be scheduled, Ms. Broj explained. If it’s denied, it goes to a human.
MUSC Health also uses AI agents from Notable to remind patients of appointments and handle check-ins without pen and paper and a clipboard. The health system has since doubled the percentage of patients checking in for appointments digitally, to nearly half.
The AI agents also reach out to patients with care gaps, like women who are overdue for their mammograms.
“When we turned that on at 5 o’clock at night, by the next morning we had 129 mammograms scheduled without any human intervention at all,” Ms. Broj said. “Since we’ve done that program, we’ve had over 2,000 mammograms scheduled and completed.”
Dozens of those women had abnormal findings. “We’re actually saving lives with tech, potentially, which is awesome,” she said.