To: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Stop the use of AI to deny health care!
The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) to deny necessary health care to patients, especially Medicare beneficiaries, is deeply alarming and has to stop. As major insurers deploy algorithms to make important decisions about people’s health, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) must seriously increase its oversight and regulation of AI tools.
Add your name to the petition to call on CMS to investigate inefficacies and flaws in AI tools and, in the meantime, stop any use of AI to deny health care!
Why is this important?
A group of bipartisan lawmakers have called on CMS to increase its scrutiny and regulation of AI tools used by Medicare Advantage plans. These legislators have expressed deep concerns over the use of AI algorithms to deny care in decisions that often compromise patient health.
There are many instances of AI-driven tools allegedly leading to denials of care, often contradicting the recommendations of medical professionals. CMS has a responsibility to protect access to care for Medicare beneficiaries—and that means enhanced oversight over the use of AI technology, which lawmakers have called “antithetical to the mission of the Medicare program.”
CMS can take tangible steps to prevent the use of AI to make life-and-death decisions, and they have a legal and moral obligation to do so, including:
- Conducting a comprehensive review on how AI tools are being used to ensure they’re not discriminating against low-income, elderly, or extremely sick Americans
- Auditing existing practices around AI and developing a national standard for how insurers should ethically use these tools
- Halting the use of AI and algorithmic technology to deny, shorten, or limit access to health care while these assessments are ongoing
Sign the petition urging CMS to increase oversight of AI and algorithmic tools that discriminate against elderly, low-income, and extremely sick patients.