Summaries have served as a valuable tool for centuries. Summarization can be traced back to ancient Roman times, when scholars would condense lengthy legal documents or religious texts into an “epitome” (which is where we get the term). The purpose of this summary was to broadly disseminate an idea – give the reader access to the same volume of information in a fraction of the time.

Today, artificial intelligence (AI) medical record summaries are just as valuable. Designed to represent the ‘sum’ of medical information in a patient’s file, an AI medical record summary is a condensed, AI generated abstract for the claims adjuster, medical director, or doctor involved in handling the claim. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and responsible AI practices such as extractive summaries, AI medical summaries help professionals complete knowledge-based tasks faster – giving them access to the patient’s timeline, diagnoses, and history at a glance. 

AI medical summaries are a new form of the time-saving practices we’ve used for thousands of years, and they’re perfectly designed to eliminate the paperwork backlogs in claims. Where is AI making the biggest impact in medical summaries? Anywhere there is excess paperwork. 

AI generated medical summaries in the claims industry

Insurance companies dealing with workers compensation, disability, health, and life insurance claims rely on medical records to decide and make their case. However, when a patient's medical claim takes a long time to process due to complex medical records or the sheer amount of data to review, the claim can end up being a much more costly issue than it was before. This is part of the reason why claims providers are seeing large losses from underwriting.

How can insurers speed up the process of handling claims? Automation – and AI. AI powered medical summaries are able to take thousands of pages of patient medical records and make them easy to use and understand. Without “creating” any reports or expert opinions, the AI medical summary takes what is already in the file, and leaves the rest of the nuanced work up to the claims team, as well as:

• Medical directors who provide medical input on a claim, and often impact the final approval of it
• Treatment providers and Nurse Case Managers, which review patient records to verify that the treatment being offered is the one the claimant needs
• Third-party administrators (TPAs), who conduct the administrative work related to a claim that the insurer is unable to handle themselves
• Medical case managers, which provide medical oversight within claims and offer guidance to patients after an accident or injury

AI generated medical summaries in the legal industry

Just like in insurance claims, the AI medical summary doesn’t try to replace the human professional and their expertise. Instead, AI-powered medical summaries help legal managers make better use of their human capital – the lawyers, associates, and administrators that make up the in-house council or the law firm. As AI summaries condense massive amounts of medical data into intelligent soundbites, the legal team can spend less time buried in pages and more time building a case and their legal strategy. 

Legal teams bogged down with paperwork face bottlenecks that make them less able to scale. AI-powered tools, like medical summaries, provide insights that legal terms can use to limit internal costs without sacrificing profitability. 

AI generated medical summaries for medical examiners

Independent Medical Examiners (IMEs), Qualified Medical Evaluators (QMEs), and Agreed Medical Examiners (AMEs) make up the medical examination experts that will accept or reject the claim for the insurance company. The cost of IMEs, QMEs, and AMEs is a hot-button issue in many states. States like California, for example, have seen costs for medical examination reports increase more than 240% over the last decade. With much of these costs owing to the processing fees for duplicate records, extra pages, or scanning required, the medical examination industry has everything to gain from utilizing AI-powered medical summaries. 

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AI medical summaries are intended to handle the heavy lifting in the claims industry. By reducing the time and effort required to review or collect a patient’s medical files, medical summaries are the “epitome” of efficient time management for claims professionals facing paperwork-heavy tasks.