This Year in AI: Scribes, Coding, Voice Agents + 2025 Preview

In 2024, artificial intelligence demonstrated its value by delivering real, measurable solutions for healthcare professionals. From streamlining operations to reducing costs and addressing workforce challenges, AI has redefined how the industry approaches efficiency and care. As we reflect on the past year, it’s clear that AI has become an essential tool for practices ready to embrace innovation and drive meaningful outcomes.

Here’s what mattered most in 2024 and what’s to come in the new year.

This Year in AI: Real Progress and Practical Solutions

AI became Multi-Modal: Images, Voice and Text Working Together

AI tools evolved this year to “see” and “hear,” with models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o integrating text, images and voice. This shift improved reasoning capabilities and practical applications, allowing advancements such as:

• Voice and speech recognition: AI now understands tone, context, and spoken intent, enabling more human-like conversations and responses.

• Image processing: Advanced models analyze and interpret visual data with unprecedented accuracy, from faxes to complex images.

• Unified reasoning: AI combines inputs like spoken questions and an uploaded image to generate deeper insights and perform multi-step analysis.

These innovations set the stage for practical, adaptable solutions across industries, especially in healthcare where repetitive tasks, documentation burdens, and resource inefficiencies have been long-standing challenges.

Practical Uses of AI: From Hype to Real Results

The practical uses of AI this year delivered tangible benefits to both clinicians and administrators, addressing long-standing pain points in healthcare. Areas where AI made the most difference include:

Streamlining Documentation with AI Scribes

AI scribes automate note-taking in real-time, significantly reducing documentation burdens on teams.

• 62% reduction in documentation time, allowing staff to focus on higher-value tasks.

• 45% decrease in errors, speeding up claim processing and reducing rework.

• Adoption is growing rapidly: A recent McKinsey study showed 70% of respondents from healthcare organizations now use at least one AI-powered tool.

AI in Revenue Cycle Management

AI tools for RCM gained significant traction. Seen as a “safer” and more tangible investment than some clinical AI applications, RCM advancements provided immediate, measurable benefits.

• AI-driven systems are now automating coding for 85-90% of outpatient specialties, reaching up to 99% in fields like radiology.

• Denials management and prior auth AI tools were the two largest categories in AI RCM, leveraging AI to predict claim denials, reduce rework and improve reimbursement rates leading to expedited patient access to care.

The practical uses of AI this year delivered tangible benefits to both clinicians and administrators, addressing long-standing pain points in healthcare. Areas where AI made the most difference include: 

Diagnostics and Treatment: Advancing Accuracy and Speed

AI-powered diagnostics achieved remarkable improvements in accuracy this year. These advancements mean faster, more reliable decision-making for providers and improved resource use for administrators.

• 95% accuracy in breast cancer detection, a 12% improvement from 2023.

• 54% faster development of patient-specific treatment protocols.

AI Voice Agents for Patient Facing Calls

Voice AI tools reshaped patient communication, allowing practices to scale by offering 24/7 support without additional staff. With staffing shortages persisting, AI has become a critical solution for maintaining high-quality service.

• 0% call abandonment rate.

• 51% decrease in patient acquisition costs.

• Reduced no-show rates through automated appointment reminders, increasing revenue and operational efficiency.

Looking Ahead: AI’s Role in 2025

Medicare & Value-Based Care: The Financial Challenges Ahead

Changes to Medicare’s payment structure in 2025 will challenge providers to do more with less. The physician fee schedule will decrease by 2.83% and practices need to improve quality metrics to offset revenue losses and maximize value-based care incentives. AI can help practices prepare for and navigate these shifts by:

• Engaging high-risk patients through predictive analytics, improving outcomes and quality scores.

• Automating patient outreach for preventive care and follow-ups to boost compliance.

• Streamlining documentation and reporting to capture quality points and maximize incentives.

2025: The Year of AI Agents

AI will continue to evolve, bringing smarter, more integrated tools to healthcare. Key advancements include: 

• AI agents will automate complex workflows: AI agents, autonomous systems designed to process data, make decisions, and take actions independently, will see real-world adoption.  For instance, in 2025, agents will read a faxed referral, navigate the insurance provider’s website to verify coverage and pre-authorization requirements, call the patient to schedule an appointment, and then text the patient a reminder 48 hours before the appointment.

• Proactive financial insights: Embedded AI will analyze financial workflows in real time, predicting claim outcomes, flagging potential revenue risks, and suggesting corrections to reduce errors and speed up reimbursements. 

• Broader adoption and faster implementation: As AI becomes more user-friendly and cost-effective, practices of all sizes will adopt these tools at a faster rate. Scalable, plug-and-play solutions will enable healthcare organizations to implement AI quickly and see measurable benefits sooner, making it accessible even for smaller teams with limited resources.

2024 showed us that AI is more than a buzzword. It’s the present and future of operational efficiency, better care, and cost savings. With tools like AI scribes, predictive diagnostics, and voice AI, practices are solving long-term challenges that once seemed insurmountable.