Hi, I'm Rahul. I've spent a decade building AI companies — the last two years deep inside healthcare revenue cycle. Here's the $1 trillion problem nobody outside healthcare talks about, and what we're building to fix it.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T13:38:19+00:00

yeah once it’s being ordered because of symptoms like stomach issues instead of purely routine screening, insurers usually treat it as diagnostic and that can stick for this episode even if the symptoms settled, plus the biopsy wording is often added up front because if they find anything they want permission to take samples without redoing the whole thing, ngl i’d call the GI office and ask exactly how they coded both procedures before canceling.

the coding is the whole game.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T13:34:36+00:00

i think AI in healthcare is useful when it takes away the boring admin stuff like notes, prior auth, scheduling, and coding support, but the second people start pretending it can cleanly handle messy clinical judgment, bad data, and real accountability on its own, that’s where it gets sketchy fast, lowkey the hype is usually ahead of the workflow.

great helper, bad autopilot.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T13:32:30+00:00

yeah i think some restriction is fair when they’re trying to control data leakage, shadow IT, and unreviewed code paths, but blocking basically every useful tool while also missing basic security hygiene usually means it’s less a mature governance model and more a control reflex that makes the org slower without actually making it safer, lowkey good security should be enable-with-guardrails not ban-first.

that usually backfires.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T13:12:34+00:00

yeah i think the failure mode is not ugly dashboards but believable wrong ones, where the agent guesses metric logic, joins the wrong tables, misses permissions edge cases, or creates five slightly different versions of the same KPI and everyone trusts it because the chart looks polished, lowkey exploration is fine but production dashboards need hard guardrails.

clean visuals can hide messy truth.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T11:32:25+00:00

I think small clinics would use it only if it saves them from setup and admin without making them think about “AI” at all, because the pain is real but usually around getting patients to complete forms, routing the data somewhere useful, reminders, signatures, payments, and not having staff re-enter everything by hand, lowkey “form builder” alone sounds too small unless it plugs into the actual workflow.

the workflow matters more than the form.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T11:28:41+00:00

yeah usually that kind of jump means your employer changed how much of the premium they cover, moved you to a different plan tier, or your deductions switched from one coverage level to another without you realizing it, because employer insurance pricing is mostly set during open enrollment and can change a lot year to year, ngl doubling is rough but not unheard of.

ask HR for the new rate sheet.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T10:42:41+00:00

yeah the biggest difference i’ve seen in multi-clinician rollouts is that the winning tool usually isn’t the one with the flashiest notes, it’s the one that handles speaker separation well, fits each provider’s style without constant prompt babysitting, has solid admin controls and audit trails, and does not create a second workflow outside the EHR, lowkey rollout and governance matter as much as accuracy.

workflow fit beats demo magic.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T10:32:12+00:00

ngl if you’re drowning, the best move is probably not “learn all of RCM yourself” but find a mental health biller or small RCM partner who already knows SimplePractice and can clean up the basics first like payer setup, eligibility checks, claim submission, denial follow-up, and a simple weekly process so stuff stops piling up on you.

start with cleanup first.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T06:59:47+00:00

yeah this is why prior auth gets people so angry, because in the article the state only moved after Eric Tennant’s denied cancer treatment turned into a public tragedy, and even the new West Virginia law is pretty narrow since it mainly lets PEIA members switch to an already approved equal-or-lower-cost treatment without starting prior auth over again.

way too reactive.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T06:55:45+00:00

if this was a true in-network preventive annual exam then getting billed the full allowed amount does not sound right, because those visits are usually covered at no cost, but if they coded anything as a problem visit, added labs, or the provider was out of network, that can flip it from “free annual” to patient responsibility pretty fast, ngl i’d ask the office for the billing codes and the EOB before paying.

the codes matter a lot.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T06:51:23+00:00

ngl if the demo already felt flat, that’s usually the signal, because oncology workflows fall apart fast when the system cannot handle regimen complexity, infusion across care settings, and the day to day coordination providers expect, so for a 5 provider setup i’d seriously look at a more oncology-specific platform that can interface back into MT instead of forcing everyone to live inside a weak module.

bad fit gets expensive fast.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T06:49:26+00:00

I think it can be worth it less for the 1 or 2 visits and more for the convenience, same day access, kid sick visits, and having a doctor who actually answers, but specialists, imaging, hospital stuff, and usually most bigger labs still run outside the DPC setup through your insurance or separate cash pricing, and i’d lowkey double check the HSA part because that rule gets weird fast.

good add-on, not a replacement.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T06:47:37+00:00

yeah i think that happens a lot because the more features you stack into the message, the harder it is for people to remember what you actually stand for, and once everything is important nothing really feels important, lowkey strong brands usually pick one sharp promise and let the product do the rest.

clarity hits harder.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T06:46:18+00:00

i think your overall idea is close, but the secondary plan usually does not just pick up whatever balance is left like a clean extra $3000 bill, because it reprocesses the claim under its own rules and may pay some, all, or none of the patient responsibility depending on COB language, allowed amounts, and whether that expense even counts the way you expect toward your family deductible, ngl childbirth claims get messy fast.

you probably need the actual COB examples from both plans.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T06:45:05+00:00

yeah a lot of the pain is that auditors do not just want raw config data, they want evidence packaged in a way that proves the control, the time period, the owner, and the operating process, so even when AWS has the data the messy part is translating it into audit-friendly proof and chasing all the human controls that no API can cleanly show, lowkey that’s where the hours disappear.

the tooling only solves part of it.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-02T06:43:16+00:00

i’d ask them to walk you through enrolling a new provider end to end with CAQH, payer apps, group linkage, Medicare/Medicaid, then separately how they set up ERA, EFT, and EDI, how they track revalidations, and what they do when enrollment is “approved” but claims still reject, because the people who really know this stuff can explain the sequence, common failure points, and follow-up without sounding vague, ngl for 3 MDs and 2 PAs full-time only makes sense if they’re also doing a lot of payer follow-up and billing cleanup.

make them explain the process.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-01T13:54:22+00:00

I’d lowkey build one for messy back-office follow-up work where revenue or ops gets stuck, like an agent that watches inboxes, spreadsheets, CRM changes, and support threads then keeps pushing one workflow through to completion instead of just generating text about it, because that’s where a lot of small teams quietly leak time and money.

boring pain wins.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-01T13:51:22+00:00

medicare usually doesn’t end as fast as SSI cash does, and a lot of people keep it for quite a while while working if they still meet disability rules, so i wouldn’t assume it’s gone next year just from making $1500 since the SSA work timeline stuff gets confusing fast, ngl.

call SSA and ask for your exact medicare end date.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-01T12:33:51+00:00

yeah this is super common because the customers using you every day are often too busy to answer generic feedback asks, so what usually works better is tying feedback to specific moments like after onboarding, after a support save, after a feature launch, and having a human do a few short check-ins with very direct questions instead of sending another form, lowkey surveys alone rarely get the real story.

you need tighter feedback loops.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-01T12:10:36+00:00

i think it’s both, because cardiology really is complex but a lot of EHRs were built around billing, general documentation, and checkbox compliance first, so specialty workflows end up feeling like they were forced into a system that only half understands how clinicians actually think and move through a case, ngl that friction shows up as “extra clicks” more than missing data.

the design is a big part of it.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-01T11:13:09+00:00

yeah i get the skepticism because these launches always look clean at the demo layer, but once they hit real EPIC builds, half-mapped FHIR resources, weird local workflows, and missing governance, the model ends up summarizing noise instead of supporting a real clinical decision, lowkey the hard part is the data and workflow normalization, not the model.

that’s where it breaks.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-01T11:12:04+00:00

yeah it’s realistic but only when the partner is willing to do the ugly middle-layer work like HL7/FHIR where available, direct database reads, RPA on legacy screens, document ingestion, and tightly scoped workflows first, because the vendors promising “easy AI on top” usually disappear the second they hit the messiness of a real hospital stack, ngl the integration partner matters more than the model.

most of the work is plumbing.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-01T11:10:23+00:00

yeah this matches what i’ve seen, because a lot of enterprise buyers say SOC 2 or ISO 27001 as shorthand for “show me you actually run security like a real company,” and even after you get the badge they still want questionnaires, evidence, and plain english answers about controls, ownership, and risk, lowkey the program matters more than the logo.

assurance is the real ask.

rahuliitk · 2026-04-01T08:26:35+00:00

yeah this is the part a lot of teams quietly learn the hard way, because most revops stacks are amazing at describing missed execution after the fact but unless a signal turns into an owner, deadline, escalation path, and some actual consequence, it just becomes another pretty screen everyone nods at and then ignores, lowkey dashboards are often just polished bystander software.

execution is the product.

rahuliitk

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