Healthcare AI Risks Creating Faster, More Expensive Billing Errors

While nearly two-thirds of providers now deploy AI for billing and claims processing, MedEvolve CEO David Henriksen warns that measuring success by processing speed creates a dangerous blind spot. If a bot accelerates the submission of a flawed claim, it simply forces human staff to spend more time on downstream corrections and appeals. Henriksen describes this phenomenon as the "Touch Tax," where the cumulative labor cost of both human and machine interactions fails to secure a faster payment.

Metrics that Mislead

Organizations frequently lean on vanity metrics like claims processed or automation percentage, which overlook the underlying friction in the revenue cycle. According to MedEvolve, between 65% and 85% of human touches in current systems yield no direct financial improvement. To break this cycle, Henriksen advocates for a shift toward outcome-based indicators, such as the total number of touches required to reach resolution and the volume of avoidable administrative labor. Without this recalibration, AI risks becoming a high-speed engine for producing errors that ultimately erode profit margins instead of protecting them.