This is shaping up to be another challenging year for healthcare system finances. It is not exactly beach reading. But neither is missing payroll.
The 2026 Costs of Caring Report from the American Hospital Association (AHA) spells it out:
Hospital expenses rose by 7.5% in 2025.About 56% of hospital costs are tied to service lines where reimbursement falls short of (or is less than) the cost of delivering care, including behavioral health, obstetrics, infectious disease, and burns and
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Health IT | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Black Book Research Releases 2026 State of U.S. Military and Defense Health IT Report
What You Should Know
Black Book Market Research released the State of U.S. Military and Defense Health Information Technology 2026, drawing on 1,037 survey responses and an 813-respondent analytical cohort of federal and defense health leaders.Released alongside the 2026 Defense Health Information Technology Symposium (DHITS) in New Orleans, the report marks the entry into a "post-EHR deployment era" following the completed worldwide rollout of MHS GENESIS.The FY2027 defense health IM/IT
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Why Exception-Driven RCM Is the Only Sustainable Operating Model
Healthcare has spent years trying to optimize a revenue cycle operating model that no longer works. Every new wave of technology has promised to make work queues more efficient. Better analytics. Better automation. Now AI.
We've spent years asking, "How do we work every claim faster?" The better question is, "Why are people working so many of these claims at all?"
The problem isn't that revenue cycle teams can't keep up. The problem is that we've built operating models where people are
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How Multilingual AI Scribes Are Bridging Communication Gaps at the Point of Care
Ambient listening technologies now facilitate real-time summarization of patient-provider conversations layered within structured documentation.
With the 2026 World Cup having just wrapped up after spanning countries and cultures, it offers a timely reminder that we’re living in an increasingly connected, multilingual world. Fans move between languages, cultures, and expressions effortlessly, creating a shared experience that doesn’t rely on everyone speaking the same language, but
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Inovalon Research Identifies Preventable Drivers of Claim Denials and Prior Authorization Delays
What You Should Know
An Inovalon national survey of over 400 revenue cycle management (RCM) leaders by Inovalon reveals that healthcare's most costly billing problems begin before a claim is ever submitted.Front-end workflow breakdowns drive 78% of denied claims, led by insurance eligibility verification, patient registration, and prior authorization delays.Prior authorization remains heavily manual: 93% of provider organizations rely on phone, fax, or payer portals, with only 7% utilizing
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Suvi Health Launches Ambient AI Platform for Inpatient Care Coordination
What You Should Know
Suvi Health has officially launched its Ambient AI Care Coordination Platform to streamline hospital stays, improve care continuity, and reduce delayed discharges.Created through 1842 Studio (the venture studio of the 1842 Fund, managed by Alloy Partners), the company was co-developed alongside researchers from the University of Notre Dame and clinicians from Mayo Clinic.Suvi Health will initiate a four-month pilot site deployment with Mayo Clinic starting in September
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Epic Launches One-Click Care Everywhere Diagnostic Image Exchange
What You Should Know
Epic has officially released Care Everywhere Diagnostic Image Exchange, enabling clinicians at Epic-connected health systems to retrieve diagnostic-quality CTs, X-rays, and MRIs with a single click.The technology bridges a long-standing interoperability gap by applying open image-sharing standards across Epic’s Care Everywhere network to transport full-resolution files directly between PACS/archiving systems.Prior to this release, clinicians were limited to viewing
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Aligned Marketplace Raises $20M to Scale Independent Primary Care
What You Should Know
Healthcare marketplace Aligned Marketplace secured $20M in Series A funding led by healthcare venture firm Venrock.The platform directly connects self-insured employers and Third-Party Administrators (TPAs) to a national network of independent advanced primary care (APC) and direct primary care (DPC) practices across all 50 states (comprising 3,000+ clinics).Actuarial data from a 2025 Fortune 500 employer program demonstrated a 12% reduction in total cost of care for
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Why AI Is Compression-Testing Healthcare Software Overhead
$25 billion. That’s how much Forrester predicts U.S. healthcare providers will spend on software this year. That equates to approximately 36% of their overall IT budget.
But the way providers are sizing up costs could be flawed. What if they are spending these substantial sums based on an enterprise software model that no longer makes sense?
Providers absorb a lot of expenses associated with tasks like onboarding new employees, retraining staff, managing workflow fragmentation, billing
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Cedar Launches Purpose-Built AI Agents for Patient Revenue Recovery
What You Should Know
Cedar officially announced the Kora Platform, evolving its single AI billing agent into an integrated suite of purpose-built, autonomous AI agents designed for healthcare revenue recovery.Built on a foundation of 1.5 billion+ patient interactions, $13.6 billion in processed payments, and 63 million+ patients served, Kora integrates directly into existing EHR, telephony, and contact center environments.The platform features Autonomous Inbound Voice, Autonomous Outbound
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