Speaking during the company’s third-quarter earnings call Tuesday (Oct. 13), CEO Steve Hemsley stressed a company-wide effort to develop modern “agentic infrastructure” designed to care simpler, faster, and more supportive for both consumers and clinicians
“Across the businesses, AI-enabled capabilities are beginning to help clinicians spend more time with patients,” Hemsley said.
For example, UnitedHealth has expanded AI-enabled chart summarization to more than 40% of its employed clinicians, shrinking chart review time by 33%. In addition, AI-enabled information gathering and research have reduced appeal cycle times by 26%, improving both member and clinician experience, something Hemsely said will likely accelerate next year.
For the upcoming Medicare Advantage annual enrollment period, the insurer is introducing AI-powered plan recommendations that analyze a member’s care history and local options to simplify plan selection, the CEO added.
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These tech deployments arrive alongside noticeable shifts in consumer behavior and demand. Patients are increasingly expecting frictionless digital access and more home-based and community-based services, Hemsley said.
The quarter saw UnitedHealth’s Optum Health arm record a 27% year-over-year surge in online self-scheduling and a 10% increase in home health visits. Overall demand for care remains strong, particularly among senior and complex care populations, while specialty pharmacy costs continue to place pressure on system affordability.
To address these strains, UnitedHealth says it is accelerating claims processing and re-engineering prior authorization policies — on pace to reduce prior authorization volumes by 30%.
The earnings showed United Health bringing in third quarter revenues of $112.7 billion, down slightly from $113.2 billion in the same quarter last year. The company said its earnings from operations came to $6.6 billion compared to $4.3 billion in the year ago quarter, “driven by disciplined execution across both UnitedHealthcare and Optum.”
PYMNTS reported earlier this year that clinicians at the University of Chicago Medicine had lowered documentation time and burnout with ambient artificial intelligence, and that Sharp HealthCare and MaineHealth saw reduced after-hours charting.
The American Medical Association similarly found that surveyed AI scribe programs saved clinicians around 15,000 hours across participating health systems.
Meanwhile, lawmakers want to put some limits on AI use in the health insurance sector. As covered here last month, the Doctors Not AI Act would prohibit an automated system from having the ultimate say on whether a medical insurer approves a claim.
“When a computer system is making decisions about healthcare, people will get hurt,” bill sponsor Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said in a news release, warning that automated denials could saddle patients with large bills, worsening health or potentially fatal consequences.
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