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mille125

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I have talked to some business owners and it is pretty clear to me that there is going to be a "layoff movement" coming because of AI primarily. If you add that to the probably rise inflation from tariffs that are just starting to kick in, I could be bad. Unemployment and inflation rising do not bode well if it happens.

My question is what should we expect in healthcare. I use virtual assistants and AI scribes which definitely makes me more efficient and makes it unnecessary to hire more people.

Do you think that we will see more disruption in healthcare in the coming months and should we prepare for how this is going to affect patients and others in the industries most vulnerable to "firings from AI"
 
AI should cause company earnings to increase as 40% of white collar workers are fired from payrolls which means stock market will go up, unemployment will go up and inflation will go down. In terms of patients, there will be less patients with private insurance. Tariffs are a bit inflationary but not dramatic. The VAT in Europe is similar and averages 21%. My uninformed opinion.
 
I’ve heard more financial hardship stories from my patients. One said their house is being foreclosed on and the other has their car repo’d. Both of them have critical spinal stenosis and no funds for surgery.
 
there will most likely be closures of several smaller rural hospitals around the country.


optimistically looking, i guess that means more staff available to hire...
 
Ducttape said:
there will most likely be closures of several smaller rural hospitals around the country.


optimistically looking, i guess that means more staff available to hire...
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I think you're just reaching for a silver lining, but the relative number of people looking for work because of this is not going to provide perceptible relief for the rest of us looking for staff. These rural hospitals are at the very least 35+miles from anything else and only account for about 10% of all staff (extrapolating physicians data). If 10% of these close, there's only about a 1% bump in available staff.

These hospitals generally haven't been solvent without subsidies, but the local impact will be dramatic and long-lasting locally. In many cases, these hospitals are one of the largest employers in the area. It will often add hours to driving distance from facilities. The survival rates from events like MI, pulm compromise and CVA will be poor compared to urban counterparts.

In the grand scheme, the number of additional deaths and economic impact nationally and globally will be imperceptible, so after the quick mention on the news cycle, life will go on. I honestly don't think most would even hear about it if it weren't in the context of making Trump look bad.
 
yes im looking for the silver lining.

but the long term ramifications will not be imperceptible. medical care for those living in rural communities will be impacted long term.

and yes, media is unlikely to cover if there were no political ramifications.

but thats true for pretty much everything nowadays.
 
I'm not worried about the tariffs, we've been taken advantage of for so long it just seems bad. Every other country in the world already does this. Long term, manufacturing should return to the US which will primarily help rural people as well.

Regarding AI, it's a mess. I don't think there will be many layoffs per se, but I do see some companies going out of business and reduced hiring moving forward. Those without a work ethic will be hit the hardest. Those who are motivated, whether educated or not, will be fine.
 
clubdeac said:
Short term pain for long term gain
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1755568903124.gif
 
Ferrismonk said:
I'm not worried about the tariffs, we've been taken advantage of for so long it just seems bad. Every other country in the world already does this. Long term, manufacturing should return to the US which will primarily help rural people as well.

Regarding AI, it's a mess. I don't think there will be many layoffs per se, but I do see some companies going out of business and reduced hiring moving forward. Those without a work ethic will be hit the hardest. Those who are motivated, whether educated or not, will be fine.
Click to expand...


I dont believe that the vast majority of Americans want to work in manufacturing jobs. We are almost fully a service economy. Floating back to a manufacturing one is not what mature economies do.

No one knows the true impact of AI but I think that most entry level manufacturing jobs are going to be replaced. My daughter is wrapping up her senior year in a college robotic engineering program. She said that recently a major manufacturing company visited her campus in a job fair and said that their vision in the future is hiring a group of robotic engineers to manage their robot force of workers. I don't think that this vision is hard to see so increasing manufacturing jobs is probably not a good long term play.
 
willabeast said:
AI should cause company earnings to increase as 40% of white collar workers are fired from payrolls which means stock market will go up, unemployment will go up and inflation will go down. In terms of patients, there will be less patients with private insurance. Tariffs are a bit inflationary but not dramatic. The VAT in Europe is similar and averages 21%. My uninformed opinion.
Click to expand...


I think that is a reasonable opinion. There are lots of pundits out there but no one truly knows what tariffs are going to do. It is very clear that it is a tax on Americans and the fact the the current administration does not say this clearly makes it look likes its intentions are not on the up and up.


I am a student of history and I can tell you if you looks at the history of US tariffs, it did not end in domestic prosperity. As I have said in other posts most of Trump's policies are based on things in the 50s (discrimination, bring back manufacturing, propping up fossil fuels, etc). His tariff policies actually go back to the interwar period of 1921-1936. The US had very high protectionism especially in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff right before the Great Depression. It killed US farming. It killed international cooperation. It likely worsened the Depression. It eventually led to a contraction of International/Global trade. This is the economic pattern that we are currently monitoring. Dont take my word for it. Look it up.
 
mille125 said:
I dont believe that the vast majority of Americans want to work in manufacturing jobs. We are almost fully a service economy. Floating back to a manufacturing one is not what mature economies do.

No one knows the true impact of AI but I think that most entry level manufacturing jobs are going to be replaced. My daughter is wrapping up her senior year in a college robotic engineering program. She said that recently a major manufacturing company visited her campus in a job fair and said that their vision in the future is hiring a group of robotic engineers to manage their robot force of workers. I don't think that this vision is hard to see so increasing manufacturing jobs is probably not a good long term play.
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We're a service economy because we exported all our manufacturing to slave labor countries, not because American's hate manufacturing.
 
BoardingDoc said:
How? I don't need an in depth analysis, I'm more wondering what their basic roles and responsibilities were.
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I’d like an in depth analysis. I’m trying to learn more about the tools available. And always would like to find ways to save money.
 
drusso said:
AI has enabled us to eliminate three employees already. I'm hoping for 6-10 more before the end of year.
Click to expand...

I’m losing 2 good employees in next 2 month. What positions/tasks have you replaced?
 
nvrsumr said:
I’m losing 2 good employees in next 2 month. What positions/tasks have you replaced?
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Virtual assistants are also good options depending on what tasks you need.
 
Ferrismonk said:
We're a service economy because we exported all our manufacturing to slave labor countries, not because American's hate manufacturing.
Click to expand...

I beg to differ. Mature economies are based on knowledge, innovation, and services instead of manufacturing. Innovation tends to decrease need for manufacturing jobs. We will greatly see this accelerate with AI.

Trump trying to take us back to the 50s and 60s may sit with his base but it is just a way to add for to the unemployment lines.
 
Status Sciaticus said:
Also interested in this.
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Its a good question. How many staff do we really need?

Virtual assistants cost about $10 per hour (no taxes, no benefits) and are usually from the Phillipines or Latin American. They are well versed in English or Spanish if you need it. They are usually nurses in their home countries. They can phone triage, do preauth, and really do anything that does not require face to face visits. I know a local practice that has more VAs than in person staff.

AI helps with scribing for sure and can do phone triages. It will probably gain more usages as time goes by.

I really think we are headed to the perfect storm of massive unemployment and high inflation.
 
mille125 said:
Its a good question. How many staff do we really need?

Virtual assistants cost about $10 per hour (no taxes, no benefits) and are usually from the Phillipines or Latin American. They are well versed in English or Spanish if you need it. They are usually nurses in their home countries. They can phone triage, do preauth, and really do anything that does not require face to face visits. I know a local practice that has more VAs than in person staff.

AI helps with scribing for sure and can do phone triages. It will probably gain more usages as time goes by.

I really think we are headed to the perfect storm of massive unemployment and high inflation.
Click to expand...
Looks like there are about 100 of those virtual assistant RN companies. Anyone have one they’d recommend? I have several possible uses.
 
callmeanesthesia said:
Looks like there are about 100 of those virtual assistant RN companies. Anyone have one they’d recommend? I have several possible uses.
Click to expand...

We've leaned into remote and virtual assistants for Admin tasks. Their work ethic is outstanding: Never late, never sick, always "yes, sir; no, sir."

If I were an emerging Gen Z American worker, I'd be pissed...
 
drusso said:
We've leaned into remote and virtual assistants for Admin tasks. Their work ethic is outstanding: Never late, never sick, always "yes, sir; no, sir."

If I were an emerging Gen Z American worker, I'd be pissed...
Click to expand...
What platform are you using? We had tried something similar but they did not satisfactorily complete simple tasks like filling out a prior authorization form.
 
mille125 said:
I beg to differ. Mature economies are based on knowledge, innovation, and services instead of manufacturing. Innovation tends to decrease need for manufacturing jobs. We will greatly see this accelerate with AI.

Trump trying to take us back to the 50s and 60s may sit with his base but it is just a way to add for to the unemployment lines.
Click to expand...
Look up war games with China. Our lack of manufacturing capability would cripple us in any real conflict with a near peer. The rust belt is not coming back, but we have to have critical infrastructure manufacturing, including batteries, chips and drones, etc. There is going to be government and private investment in high tech manufacturing out of necessity. This piece of it is not political pandering.
 
To say we need not focus on manufacturing (among other things) is laughable at best. Complete opposite of reality. We can't make a lot of the basic things we need, maybe the COVID manufactering crisis was ignored by some...Agree with Cowboy completely about the simulations that have been run in the past where are shortcomings in manufactering were highlighted and proved to be our downfall.

Chip manufactering is about to pick up significantly.

Yall should read Chip Wars. Great book.
 
cowboydoc said:
Look up war games with China. Our lack of manufacturing capability would cripple us in any real conflict with a near peer. The rust belt is not coming back, but we have to have critical infrastructure manufacturing, including batteries, chips and drones, etc. There is going to be government and private investment in high tech manufacturing out of necessity. This piece of it is not political pandering.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Spot on. We can’t be dependent on China for essential defense supplies which includes a lot of things
 
cowboydoc said:
Look up war games with China. Our lack of manufacturing capability would cripple us in any real conflict with a near peer. The rust belt is not coming back, but we have to have critical infrastructure manufacturing, including batteries, chips and drones, etc. There is going to be government and private investment in high tech manufacturing out of necessity. This piece of it is not political pandering.
Click to expand...
You are 100 percent right. Clubdeac and I actually agree about something so you know it must be correct, 🙂

To outsource key components is crazy and puts the country at risk.

My comments related to Trumps obsession at bringing many many manufacturing plants back. Americans don't want those jobs and robots will replace them in a matter of years (or maybe just 1 year).
 
callmeanesthesia said:
Looks like there are about 100 of those virtual assistant RN companies. Anyone have one they’d recommend? I have several possible uses.
Click to expand...


I use Med VA. As others have said about their companies that they use, they are professional, andcompetent, with excellent work ethics. Always respectful. Never late. And 10 dollars per hour flat and 12 hours flat for Spanish. I am really sad at saying this but they generally run circles around most American workers doing the same task at about 1/2 the cost especially when factoring in benefits.
 
What tasks have you been using them for? We currently use an India-based company called TurnAround for document linking into our EMR and first line operators as an alternative to a phone tree. We looked at expanded use cases like billing and prior auths but they were generally just creating more work for our staff by having to check and fix errors.

There are also AI prior auth handling and document handling products that I’ve read about and I’d love to know if they’re any good.
 
callmeanesthesia said:
What tasks have you been using them for? We currently use an India-based company called TurnAround for document linking into our EMR and first line operators as an alternative to a phone tree. We looked at expanded use cases like billing and prior auths but they were generally just creating more work for our staff by having to check and fix errors.

There are also AI prior auth handling and document handling products that I’ve read about and I’d love to know if they’re any good.
Click to expand...

Any task that does not require face to face interaction. So no getting vital signs or running the c arm.

Anything related to billing, scheduling, preauth, phone triage, or admin is fair game.
 
drusso said:
AI has enabled us to eliminate three employees already. I'm hoping for 6-10 more before the end of year.
Click to expand...
Do share about your workflows. Which EMR are you using? How are you leveraging the tech to get these results? Which AI and virtual scribes did you lean into? I've tried Freed, which I liked. But I haven't been able to shed FTE's with this approach. We use Athena.

As you know, private practice is under assault. Very difficult to continue operating with the low margins, high labor costs, and high materials costs.
 
I’m expecting inflation and borrowing more to take advantage of it.
 
I think we need to be more worried about the next 10 yrs actually. Next 6 months will be fine


Without cuts, the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will run out of money and there isn't enough coming in to pay for current benefits. If Congress does nothing and waits until the next decade (five years away!), the cuts will be draconian.

The Social Security Trustees have been warning us about this funding shortfall for the last 30 years. But Congress likes to pretend it has the power to override math, and realities like balancing revenue and spending, budgeting and planning for the future are rarely part of political discussions.

The one thing Congress can't control is the financial markets, and when Wall Street can no longer ignore the insanity in Washington, it will react. It won't be pretty. Smart people are protecting themselves. The middle-class and the vulnerable will be devastated.

“For lawmakers to feel the urgency to take corrective fiscal action, 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝘁𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝘀𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴...."

In other words, anyone who votes for "I'm not going to touch your Social Security" is voting for their own destruction.

Call your senators and tell them you want them to take the drastic, painful action now, rather than in a few years when it will be even more painful

fortune.com

Social Security and Medicare cuts are coming because the bond market will eventually bring Congress to its knees, economist says | Fortune

"A sharp upward repricing of the term premium for longer-dated bonds could force Congress back into a reform mindset."
fortune.com fortune.com
 
drusso said:
We've leaned into remote and virtual assistants for Admin tasks. Their work ethic is outstanding: Never late, never sick, always "yes, sir; no, sir."

If I were an emerging Gen Z American worker, I'd be pissed...
Click to expand...
Can you please go into more detail about which jobs/tasks you're referring to?
 
Hi, Mrs Jones we got your referral from Dr Bob to see and discuss pain interventions. We have an available appt Tuesday at 8:00am.
 
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