AI scribes are quickly becoming a staple for providers, as consultancy McKinsey estimated 10+% of US physicians are already using the tools.

Tech companies like Abridge, Ambience, Suki, Nabla, and Microsoft have stepped forward as leaders in the AI scribe space, providing technology that can listen to patient–provider conversations and help formulate clinical documentation. Electronic health records (EHR) companies Epic, Athenahealth, and Oracle have also already integrated this technology into their platforms.

Jon Ebbert, a physician and lead of voice programs at Rochester, Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic, told Healthcare Brew AI scribes are going to “transform” healthcare. The scribe market was worth $397.1 million in 2024 and is estimated to reach nearly $3 billion by 2033, per Grand View Research.

What does an AI scribe do? For every appointment, clinicians have to create a patient note describing conditions and treatments to upload into an EHR.

Learn more about these AI tools here.—CM

Hospital pharmacy leaders have many stressors: tariffs, supply shortages, and high specialty drug costs are just a few.

A report released Jan. 29 by supply chain solutions company Tecsys provides more insight into how hospital pharmacies are prioritizing these and other challenges. The company surveyed 201 hospital C-suite executives and professionals who directly oversee supply chain and pharmacy operations.

According to respondents, the most common operational challenge is managing drug shortages (44%). Drug shortages cost US hospitals roughly $900 million and 20 million hours of labor annually, per a June 2025 survey from healthcare services firm Vizient, though the number of new shortages in 2025 was the lowest it’s been since 2006, according to trade group the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

The next most-common operational concerns were regulatory compliance (33%) and the high costs of specialty drugs (33%).

Tech could help alleviate some of the burden.—CC

The White House just delivered a bad prognosis to health insurers: Medicare rates will be flat next year.

Late last night, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that payment rates to Medicare Advantage would only rise by about 0.09% in 2027, far below analysts expectations of between 3% and 6%, and a steep cut from the 5.06% increase for the current year.

Medicare Advantage is an alternative to traditional Medicare, offered by private insurers rather than directly operated by the federal government. The smaller increase in payments for 2027 is meant to help patients better afford the high costs of medical treatment.

Shares of UnitedHealth took the worst fall on the news, plummeting 19.72%. (Revealing its first annual revenue drop in over 30 years in its Q4 earnings report this morning certainly didn’t help).

Other health giants also plummeted on the Medicare Advantage news: CVS Health fell 13.97%, Humana declined 21.09%, and Elevance Health tumbled 14.33%—collectively erasing about $90 billion in market cap. Centene dropped 10.31% and Molina Healthcare fell 8.43%, too.

Keep reading on Brew Markets.—LB

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