Hospitals and healthcare providers worldwide are facing an unprecedented squeeze. With margins shrinking, costs rising, and insurance denials at stubbornly high levels, the urgency to modernize healthcare systems has never been greater. According to MarketScale, more than $250 billion is wasted each year in the U.S. healthcare revenue cycle alone, much of it due to preventable errors and inefficiencies. The question on everyone’s mind: can health systems harness the power of digital health technologies (DHTs)—including artificial intelligence (AI), wearable devices, and telemedicine—fast enough to make a real difference, all without disrupting vital day-to-day operations?
This challenge is hardly theoretical. As Frontiers in Public Health reports, DHTs have already become a cornerstone of modern healthcare, dramatically improving quality and safety in clinical practice, public health, and medical research as of 2025. Their transformative potential was especially clear during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they proved indispensable for epidemic surveillance, precision containment, and keeping access open even as physical clinics shuttered. Yet, for all their promise, these technologies bring their own set of headaches—digital ethics, equity, privacy, regulatory hurdles, and the ever-present question of how to fit them into the complex web of clinical workflows.
Enter Access Healthcare, a company that has made it its mission to rewire the healthcare revenue cycle using what it calls “agentic AI.” CEO Shaji Ravi, with nearly three decades of experience in the U.S. healthcare revenue cycle, has seen firsthand how hospitals struggle to keep up. “More than $250 billion is wasted each year,” Ravi told MarketScale, pointing to a system riddled with preventable errors and inefficiencies. The problem isn’t just about wasted money—it’s about the stress and uncertainty this puts on hospitals’ ability to provide care.
So what’s the solution? Ravi and his team advocate for a blueprint of “transformation without disruption.” Instead of ripping out existing systems and risking cash flow chaos, Access Healthcare—now part of Smarter Technologies, alongside SmarterDX and Thoughtful AI—proposes a phased approach. The key, Ravi says, is to wrap modular AI around existing electronic health records (EHRs), requiring “near-zero” IT lift. This means hospitals can start reaping the benefits of AI without the pain of overhauling their entire infrastructure.
The process starts at the front end: fixing documentation and coding upstream using SmarterDX. According to Ravi, about 60% of claims pay cleanly, but the persistent 40% problem starts before a claim is ever submitted. By addressing these issues early, hospitals can reduce the need for costly downstream rework. But the innovation doesn’t stop there. The company’s agentic AI goes beyond traditional robotic process automation (RPA), which relies on static rules. Instead, it uses self-learning “knowledge streams” that spot root causes, propagate fixes across thousands of claims, and are audited by governance teams to prevent the rise of so-called “rogue bots.”
This humans-in-the-loop approach is crucial. While AI can process vast amounts of data and identify patterns that humans might miss, oversight is needed to ensure reliability and compliance. “Agentic AI with humans-in-the-loop is used to identify root causes and propagate fixes across thousands of claims with governance auditing to prevent rogue bots,” MarketScale notes, emphasizing the importance of responsible AI deployment in healthcare.
The benefits are tangible. Ravi points to a “zero-disruption rollout” with real return on investment: a roughly 50% reduction in personnel in the first months as AI agents take on tasks like denial management, coding assistance, posting, and accounts receivable (AR) follow-up. That’s not just a win for the bottom line—it frees up human specialists to focus on more complex cases and patient care. As of 2025, Access Healthcare boasts a workforce of over 27,000 specialists spread across the U.S., India, and the Philippines, all working to integrate service delivery, clinical intelligence, and agentic automation for better outcomes.
But as Frontiers in Public Health points out, the journey toward fully digital, AI-powered healthcare is far from straightforward. DHTs have enabled major advances in personalized medicine, predictive analytics, and remote patient monitoring, but they also raise thorny questions. Digital ethics and equity are front and center—how do we ensure these tools don’t widen the digital divide or leave vulnerable populations behind? Privacy and data security are perennial concerns, especially as sensitive health data flows through cloud servers and across borders. Technical and regulatory policy restrictions can slow down innovation, while integration into established clinical workflows often proves trickier than anticipated.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the stakes of getting digital health right became painfully clear. Technologies like telemedicine and remote monitoring helped maintain access when in-person visits were impossible, and AI-powered analytics supported epidemic surveillance and precision containment. Still, the pandemic also exposed gaps in digital readiness, with some populations struggling to access or benefit from these tools. As the Frontiers in Public Health review notes, “critical challenges including the digital ethics and equity, technical and regulatory policy restrictions, privacy and data security concerns, and clinical workflow integration issues remain to be addressed.”
What’s the path forward? The review suggests a multi-pronged approach. Stakeholders—including healthcare providers, technology developers, and policymakers—must work together to overcome barriers and elevate healthcare standards globally. That means investing in digital literacy and infrastructure, crafting clear and flexible regulations, and designing technologies that are inclusive and user-friendly. It also means building robust governance frameworks to ensure that AI and other digital tools are used ethically, safely, and transparently.
For Access Healthcare and others leading the charge, the message is clear: digital transformation is not optional, but it doesn’t have to be disruptive. By focusing on modular, incremental changes and keeping humans firmly in the loop, it’s possible to cut costs, improve collections, and—most importantly—deliver better care. Ravi’s vision is one of integration, not upheaval: “We’re helping providers cut costs and improve collections—without changing core systems,” he told MarketScale.
As the dust settles from the COVID-19 pandemic and the healthcare sector looks to the future, the role of digital health technologies will only grow. The challenge will be to harness their power responsibly, ensuring that innovation serves everyone—patients and providers alike. With careful planning, robust governance, and a commitment to equity, the promise of digital health can become a reality for all.
