Healthcare runs a 1980s model in 2026 | Aaron Miri, Baptist Health
Friday, October 9, 2026
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The speaker reports that Baptist Health leveraged automated assistive coding to reduce the time for submitting bills, fulfilling claims, and obtaining patient prior authorization by twenty percent, resulting in nearly one million dollars in savings.
The speaker reports that Baptist Health has not hired a new help desk agent in over eighteen months due to automation of typical tasks like password resets via a front-facing bot.
The speaker reports that Baptist Health deployed a homegrown AI model to identify hospital-at-home candidates from emergency department patients but discovered on the first day it was incorrectly selecting inappropriate patient types, requiring immediate model tweaking and ongoing human verification of outputs.
Christina Farr sits down with Aaron Miri, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital & Innovation Officer, Baptist Health, to talk about where AI is changing how a health system runs, and where liability, privacy law and payer friction still slow it down. Aaron explains why Baptist hasn’t hired a help desk agent in over 18 months and why he thinks AI will replace future hiring more than current roles. He also makes the case for a universal patient identifier, calling it the “primary key” AI in healthcare is missing.—Join Christina for upcoming webinars:10/8 - Why Are Hospitals Hiring Chief AI Officers? https://streamyard.com/watch/VjvVZiDN8ZMH 10/13 - Verifying AI in Medicine: Is Healthcare AI Actually Ready for Deployment? https://streamyard.com/watch/GwsSXwdikhMw 10/28 - Type 2 Diabetes & Cardiometabolic Care: Wearables, AI & GLP-1s https://streamyard.com/watch/uAuwCzUEJTCF 11/3 - Is It Finally the Moment for Alternative Plan Design? https://streamyard.com/watch/ereM3aB58XK4 —LINKS: Nature Medicine study comparing general-purpose LLMs with clinical AI tools: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-026-04431-5 Utah’s AI prescription renewal pilot (Doctronic agreement): https://ai.utah.gov/agreements/doctronic/ NHS Spine: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/spine HITAC: https://www.healthit.gov/hitac/committees/health-information-technology-advisory-committee-hitac Chrissy Farr on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LiferswithChristinaFarr Chrissy Farr on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cfarr/ Subscribe to the Second Opinion Newsletter: https://secondopinion.media/ Chrissy’s Book: The Storyteller's Advantage: https://www.chrissyfarr.com/books —FOLLOW:Aaron:https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronmiri/ https://x.com/AaronMiri Chrissy:https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinafarr/ https://x.com/chrissyfarr Second Opinion Media:https://www.instagram.com/second.opinion.media/ https://x.com/second_op_media —TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Lead in(00:29) Intro(01:22) ER experience breakdown(03:39) Fixing intake friction(06:26) Clinical AI shortcuts(10:04) Liability and tort reform(14:04) Universal patient ID debate(20:54) Patients versus clinician AI(24:50) Automation and admin jobs(27:42) Automation shrinks back office(29:18) Claims and same day payment(33:20) Cutting costs without knee jerks(35:50) Profit pools and public programs(39:06) Ending payer provider resentment(43:57) Free markets and funding innovation(46:45) Paying for clinical AI(48:26) Good enough AI in practice(50:59) AI risk versus status quo(53:03) Wrap
Show transcript excerpt
Christina Farr sits down with Aaron Miri, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital & Innovation Officer, Baptist Health, to talk about where AI is changing how a health system runs, and where liability, privacy law and payer friction still slow it down. Aaron explains why Baptist hasn’t hired a help desk agent in over 18 months and why he thinks AI will replace future hiring more than current roles. He also makes the case for a universal patient identifier, calling it the “primary key” AI in healthcare is missing.—Join Christina for upcoming webinars:10/8 - Why Are Hospitals Hiring Chief AI Officers? https://streamyard.com/watch/VjvVZiDN8ZMH 10/13 - Verifying AI in Medicine: Is Healthcare AI Actually Ready for Deployment? https://streamyard.com/watch/GwsSXwdikhMw 10/28 - Type 2 Diabetes & Cardiometabolic Care: Wearables, AI & GLP-1s https://streamyard.com/watch/uAuwCzUEJTCF 11/3 - Is It Finally the Moment for Alternative Plan Design? https://streamyard.com/watch/ereM3aB58XK4 —LINKS: Nature Medicine study comparing general-purpose LLMs with clinical AI tools: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-026-04431-5 Utah’s AI prescription renewal pilot (Doctronic agreement): https://ai.utah.gov/agreements/doctronic/ NHS Spine: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/spine HITAC: https://www.healthit.gov/hitac/committees/health-information-technology-advisory-committee-hitac Chrissy Farr on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LiferswithChristinaFarr Chrissy Farr on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cfarr/ Subscribe to the Second Opinion Newsletter: https://secondopinion.media/ Chrissy’s Book: The Storyteller's Advantage: https://www.chrissyfarr.com/books —FOLLOW:Aaron:https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronmiri/ https://x.com/AaronMiri Chrissy:https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinafarr/ https://x.com/chrissyfarr Second Opinion Media:https://www.instagram.com/second.opinion.media/ https://x.com/second_op_media —TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Lead in(00:29) Intro(01:22) ER experience breakdown(03:39) Fixing intake friction(06:26) Clinical AI shortcuts(10:04) Liability and tort reform(14:04) Universal patient ID debate(20:54) Patients versus clinician AI(24:50) Automation and admin jobs(27:42) Automation shrinks back office(29:18) Claims and same day payment(33:20) Cutting costs without knee jerks(35:50) Profit pools and public programs(39:06) Ending payer provider resentment(43:57) Free markets and funding innovation(46:45) Paying for clinical AI(48:26) Good enough AI in practice(50:59) AI risk versus status quo(53:03) Wrap
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