Epic’s Users Group Meeting (UGM) this year made one thing clear: AI adoption is accelerating, and fast. The developments we’re seeing are pushing the entire ecosystem of providers, payers, and patients to adapt. As a leader in AI medical coding, I see significant and exciting implications for leaders in health IT and revenue cycle management.
With a month of distance from UGM, what are the top three takeaways still shaping conversations and opportunities? Here are my takes and what they signal for HIT and RCM leaders.
1. AI everywhere
At UGM, AI was front and center, with nearly every vendor showcasing solutions to excited customers eager to find the right fit. Seth Howard, Epic’s VP of R&D, emphasized that Epic is “in the middle of an explosion of development.” These projects, built on years of groundwork, have been ushering in the present wave of innovation. And what we saw at UGM? That was just a glimpse of the current AI-focused efforts at Epic, which include over 100 generative AI use cases, according to Howard.
One of the hottest topics at UGM was ambient transcription — essentially, an AI-powered medical scribe that documents clinician-patient encounters without manual input from the clinician. The benefits are clear: more accurate documentation, more time for patient care, and one less administrative task for clinicians. Even more interesting, forward-thinking health systems are combining AI coding and ambient transcription for an integrated, end-to-end strategy. This approach prepares high-quality documentation for near-immediate autonomous coding, accelerating the revenue cycle and supporting enterprise-wide consistency and compliance.
2. A new efficiency standard for payers
Epic Payer Platform’s goal is simple: to pave the way for more efficient collaboration between payers and providers. By improving critical processes such as provider directories, medical policy transparency, and prior authorizations, it addresses long-standing inefficiencies in provider-payer interactions. Already connected to over half of Epic’s health system partners — at no cost — the platform is bringing long-overdue updates to historically slow, manual tasks such as chart retrieval and prior authorization. With AI integration, the platform is set to reduce administrative overhead and finally break through the bottlenecks that have slowed systems down for years. As Epic CEO Judy Faulkner shared, about half of Epic’s health system and medical group customers, along with seven of the nation’s largest payers, are already connected.
With major payers onboard, Epic’s Blue Ribbon program is encouraging health plans to leverage clinical data for risk and quality, streamline claims, and enable electronic authorizations. But the big question is whether more payers will join — and what Epic can do to get them into this collaborative sandbox. Either way, the main takeaway is that Epic is pushing to elevate payer-provider collaboration, making it a focal point of the company’s strategy. If UGM showed us anything, it’s that this effort is just getting started, and could redefine how payers and providers work together in the years ahead.
3. Epic’s accessibility push
UGM underscored that Epic is intentionally becoming more accessible on two fronts: for providers and for vendors. This focus is creating new opportunities on both sides.
For providers, Epic’s Garden Plot initiative is making its advanced EHR tools available to small and mid-sized practices that previously struggled to access them. Initially focused on primary care and orthopedics, it’s now expanding into more specialties. As Faulkner noted, “We believe that by … working together in the same specialty and in the same instance, [groups] will have excellent results.” This initiative is a game-changer, giving smaller practices a chance to tap into Epic’s tools, including AI technologies that once seemed out of reach.
For vendors, Epic’s third-party program, Showroom, helps health systems identify third-party vendors. For example, within Showroom, the Toolbox offers select solutions that align with Epic’s “Blueprint,” in categories handpicked based on customer feedback and industry demand. This promotes integration of advanced technologies, such as autonomous coding, for providers on Epic.
The easier it gets for providers to integrate vendor functionality, the faster providers of all sizes can harness the technology they need and speed up the path to relief from long-standing headwinds. At UGM, Epic helped to position itself as a key connector between providers and vendors.
What’s next?
As a first-time UGM attendee, I left energized by the rapid pace of AI advancements and the demand from health system leaders. Conversations about autonomous coding, ambient documentation, and payer-provider platforms highlighted not only the significant progress being made but also how urgently providers need these technologies to tackle their toughest challenges. There’s real momentum, and I’m excited to see how it evolves in the coming months. Epic has raised the stakes – now, those who move quickly to embrace these innovations will be leading the next major transformation in healthcare.
About Andrew Lockhart
Andrew Lockhart is CEO of Fathom, the leader in autonomous medical coding. Andrew earned his MBA from Stanford University and his BA from the University of Toronto. He is an avid speaker and has presented at HFMA, Academy Forum, Stanford Medical School, and HBMA events.
