Utah approves AI renewals of diabetes, heart drugs; Advocate patients link records to ChatGPT; lawmakers fight RPM limit; Novant shifts to virtual care
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Utah approved a pilot on Oct. 5 that lets August AI's software review renewals of routine diabetes and cardiovascular prescriptions for $4 each, with a Utah-licensed physician authorizing every renewal, MobiHealthNews reported.
The pilot is the second in the state's AI sandbox to handle chronic-disease renewals, after Doctronic's, and follows Nolla Health's acne pilot, approved the same day, the first to let AI issue initial prescriptions. Elsewhere, Advocate Health said the number of its patients who linked their MyChart records to ChatGPT rose more than 7,000% from July to August, and 32 House members asked the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to drop a proposed limit on paying for remote patient monitoring by contracted staff.
Novant Health is selling 36 South Carolina urgent care centers as it moves patients to around-the-clock virtual care built with K Health's AI. The day's other items cover an FDA clearance for MRI body-composition software, federal money for patient-controlled AI agents and pediatric AI, a Parkinson's telerehabilitation trial and a staffing-software funding round.
THE DETAILS
- Regulation Oct 5, 2026The pilot covers routine, non-controlled medications for chronic illness, including common treatments for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and a Utah-licensed physician reviews each AI recommendation before a prescription is authorized, MobiHealthNews reported. The company said the pilot advances by drug class and requires 1,250 physician-reviewed decisions per class and set performance benchmarks before each new stage; it said it carries specialty malpractice insurance and tells patients whenever AI is involved. Utah's Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy also approved a virtual pelvic floor therapy pilot from Expect Fitness for urinary incontinence, pelvic pain and postpartum complications, according to Healthcare Dive, which reported that neither pilot had launched. The state's medical licensing board asked in the spring for the first renewal pilot, Doctronic's, to be suspended, and regulators refused.Sources: MobiHealthNews, Healthcare Dive
- Deployment Oct 6, 2026The 69-hospital system did not set up the connections; patients made them through OpenAI's website, and Advocate has no view of daily activity but tracks the API calls against its Epic record, Dr. Bobbie Byrne, its executive vice president and chief information officer, told Becker's Hospital Review. Advocate pays a cost tied to the number of patients and the number of requests they make, she said. "Right now we can absorb the amounts, but I would be concerned if the growth rate escalates," Byrne said, adding that there is "a disconnect between who benefits and who pays." OpenAI launched the ChatGPT feature in January and made it broadly available in July, according to Becker's.Source: Becker's Hospital Review
- Regulation Oct 6, 2026The proposed 2027 Medicare physician fee schedule would limit payment for remote patient monitoring to services furnished by clinical staff the billing practice employs directly, ending payment when contracted third parties do the work, Becker's Hospital Review reported. The bipartisan Oct. 2 letter, led by Reps. David Kustoff, R-Tenn., and Troy Balderson, R-Ohio, says 70% of rural health clinics rely on outside clinical partners, that nearly 1 million Medicare beneficiaries used remote monitoring in 2024 and that the HHS inspector general flagged 0.68% of billing practices for concerning patterns; it asks CMS to write program-integrity standards aimed at bad actors instead. The House Ways and Means Committee advanced Kustoff's Rural Patient Monitoring Access Act, H.R. 3108, in July. The final rule is expected around Nov. 1.
- Deployment Oct 5, 2026Novant is "transitioning away from traditional urgent care locations" as patient preferences change, Becker's Hospital Review reported Oct. 5. The virtual primary care service it launched with K Health in July runs through its website and MyChart in North Carolina and South Carolina; a digital assistant gathers symptoms before a clinician visit, and a tool called PatientGPT answers patients' health questions inside the record. Prisma Health is buying the 36 Doctors Care centers and about 500 employees in a deal expected to close Nov. 1, Becker's reported Sept. 29. Becker's counts at least 10 health systems offering 24/7 virtual care with AI triage, including Mayo Clinic, Mass General Brigham and Northwell Health.
- Regulation Oct 5, 2026SwiftSight Body Composition received 510(k) clearance and measures visceral and subcutaneous fat, abdominal and thigh muscle, muscle quality and liver fat, ranking each result against age- and sex-matched reference populations, AuntMinnie reported Oct. 5. The company is marketing it for preventive care, weight management and wellness programs with repeat scans and called it a "new revenue opportunity" for imaging centers, according to Radiology Business. SimonMed Imaging, which runs its own whole-body MRI program, is the first U.S. customer. The announcement cited no outcome data.Sources: AuntMinnie, Radiology Business
- Money Oct 6, 2026The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology awarded $1.5 million through its Leading Edge Acceleration Projects program to MedStar Health Research Institute and the Regenstrief Institute, Becker's Hospital Review reported Oct. 6. MedStar's open-source Sovereign Execution Bridge would let patients direct AI agents handling complex clinical follow-up, with patient-controlled data access and verifiable records of each AI action; ONC's project list puts completion in fall 2028. Regenstrief will recruit at least three laboratories to adopt standardized lab terminology. "Laboratory data is among the most frequently exchanged and clinically consequential data in healthcare," said Steven Posnack, ONC's principal deputy national coordinator.Sources: Becker's Hospital Review, ONC investments
- Money Oct 5, 2026The cash and cloud credits, part of a $10 million AWS commitment to children's health, go to projects including Nationwide Children's expansion of a machine-learning platform for genetic diagnosis, Seattle Children's conversion of more than 35,000 EEG studies into AI-ready data, and Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters' model to predict medication nonadherence, Becker's Hospital Review reported Oct. 5. Cook Children's is building an epilepsy data platform, and Lurie Children's is extending a chart-summary tool to pediatric transplant care.Source: Becker's Hospital Review
- Evidence Oct 7, 2026The multicenter, rater-blinded trial randomized patients to one, two or three months of AI-assisted home exercise sessions of 15 to 30 minutes, five days a week, and found no significant difference among the groups in the primary outcome, change in MDS-UPDRS Part III motor score at three months, the authors reported in npj Digital Medicine on Oct. 7. Of 120 patients enrolled, 71 were included in the final analysis. The authors described the trial as exploratory, and it had no arm without the AI system.Source: npj Digital Medicine
- Money Oct 6, 2026Oak HC/FT led the Series A, Fierce Healthcare reported Oct. 6. The company named MemorialCare, LifeBridge Health, Allina Health, Northwestern Medicine, Rochester Regional Health and St. Luke's Health as customers and said St. Luke's cut premium labor spending 54% within 12 weeks; the figures are the company's own. Vitalize plans to expand from labor management into patient throughput and capacity.Source: Fierce Healthcare