Fed-up patients facing astronomical medical bills are fighting back against hospitals and insurance companies with a secret weapon: artificial intelligence.
Alicia Bittle gave birth to her youngest son in August, but rushed him to the emergency room just three weeks later after the infant developed a fever and respiratory illness.
The stay-at-home mom and “trad wife” who raises her brood on a homestead farm with her husband, spent a grueling two nights in the hospital, where her newborn got a spinal tap, antibiotic and antiviral meds, and a slew of tests before ultimately being diagnosed with Covid.
Then Bittle, who also writes part time for the conservative women’s publication Evie Magazine, got an eye-popping bill.
The hospital, which Bittle declined to identify, charged the 31-year-old mom of four $14,017.62, leaving her on the hook for a $1,000 copay.
“I’m convinced hospitals charge such crazy, arbitrary amounts so that when you get your co-pay amount from your insurance you’re not angry that you have to shell out $1,000 — you’re relieved you don’t have to pay $14,000,” Bittle wrote on X of the ordeal.
Incensed, she decided to run her itemized hospital bill through Grok, the Elon Musk-owned generative AI chatbot, asking it to analyze the rate for each line item.
Nearly all the charges on Bittle’s bill were in excess of state and national averages, according to the bot, which provided the links to prove it.
Compared to national averages — Bittle said only that she lives in a rural Southern state — Grok estimated the bill should’ve been half what the hospital charged.
The bulk of the bill wasn’t the lab tests or antibiotic treatments, but the room and board and emergency room fees.
The hospital charged Bittle nearly $7,000 for two nights in the hospital, which the billing department coded “all inclusive room and board,” she told The Post.
According to Grok, a $3,000-plus daily room rate is unusually high, with a more typical rate costing between $1,000 to $2,000.
Grok also flagged Bittle’s $2,261 emergency room fee.
Noting these can vary widely, Grok determined a reasonable price range should be between $500 and $1,500.
No one at the hospital’s billing department could explain the exorbitant room rates, or why her “all inclusive” stay — complete with a bed and plastic chair — was so pricey, she said.
“I finally talked with a guy who seemed to know what was what, but I asked for specifics and he wasn’t able to provide any,” Bittle told The Post.
After days of haggling with various hospital reps, Bittle eventually learned that her family qualified for the hospital’s financial aid program based on their income and family size — a fact she wouldn’t have stumbled upon without taking up her AI-fueled crusade.
While her son recovered, Bittle hopes sharing her experience will help others facing outrageous healthcare costs.
“This is theft,” she said of her inflated hospital bills. “I’m hopeful AI can change how medical billing and insurance is done, and give the American people the transparency we deserve.”
At least one new company is setting out to do just that.
OpenHand is a medical healthcare startup touting itself as the AI ally for medical bills, giving patients the tools to identify billing errors and dispute unreasonable costs.
The NYC-based company launched in August, but hasn’t yet determined when their services will be open to the public.
For now, patients can request early access through a form on their website.
Once users create a profile, they can upload their medical bills to the site, where OpenHand’s AI tool then analyzes the bills to identify errors.
The bot will even negotiate with providers on patients’ behalf if they opt not to do the haggling themselves.
Natalie Hayden is a patient advocate for those who suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, and called tools like OpenHand a lifeline for people living with chronic illness.
”A lot of IBS patients struggle with costly medical bills, and their program finds discrepancies that you wouldn’t think to double check,” Hayden told The Post.
Patients aren’t the only ones using AI to their advantage — doctors are also reaping the benefits, leveraging the high-tech smarts to push back on insurance companies when denials leave them with uncollectible debts.
Bryan Rotella is an attorney whose practice specializes in artificial intelligence. He’s helping doctors counter claim denials with tools like ChatGPT, which predict the language most likely to lead to a successful appeal.
“AI can be a game-changer for one of the biggest frustrations in the doctor-patient relationship, which is insurance companies denying care and leaving doctors feeling they have no tools to help,” Rotella told The Post.
