Medicare has launched a payment model that could accelerate AI’s leap from pilots to routine care. Instead of paying mainly for clinic visits or clinician time, the ACCESS programme rewards organizations with predictable funding for measurable health outcomes, paying the full amount only when patients improve. This shift creates room for tools that manage follow-ups, monitoring, referrals, and medication between appointments. One early participant, Pair Team, supports patients facing chronic disease and instability through tech-enabled, continuous coordination.
Medicare’s ACCESS model builds the first government mechanism to pay for AI care agents that support patients between appointments. It covers tasks like monitoring remotely, checking in with calls, coordinating housing referrals, and ensuring medication pickup—functions that typically fall outside traditional reimbursement. The result: a concrete path for AI-enabled care, long before most of tech even realized it existed.
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A Medicare provider database on CMS reportedly stayed publicly accessible for weeks, raising fears that Social Security numbers could be exposed and used for identity theft. Officials say Medicare beneficiaries were not directly impacted, but cybersecurity experts warn that even without a breach by hackers, leaked SSNs can enable fraud and long-term identity risk. Here is how to check your exposure.
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