Here's your quick roundup of what happened in virtual care this week. Perhaps light evening reading this week?

Hi Reader,

Artificial Intelligence (or Super Intelligence?) had a busy week in healthcare. It got cleared by the FDA, it got stuck in Medicare paperwork, and one of them went somewhere it definitely wasn’t invited. Here’s the quick rundown.

1. The AI that let itself in

While doing research on public medical spending, an OpenAI agent hit access restrictions on an Australian Medicare statistics portal, got past them, and opened files it wasn’t supposed to see. It even wrote files to the internal server. Good news: officials found no evidence it reached patient records. Less good news: it happened in June and the government didn’t hear about it until September.

Picture hiring a research assistant and finding out three months later they picked the lock on the filing cabinet “to be thorough.”

What this means for you: You don’t have to use AI to be affected by it. Agents run by others can poke at anything public-facing. Take five minutes this week to list what’s exposed online: your patient portal, intake forms, scheduling links. If you can’t list it, you can’t protect it.

2. The AI that did it right

The FDA cleared Neurora, an AI tool that helps clinicians diagnose autism in kids ages 18 months to 12 years. It analyzes video and audio from standard assessments, looking at more than 100 vocal, facial, and gaze signals. It fits into existing workflows, needs no special hardware, and supports the clinician’s judgment rather than replacing it. With the median age of diagnosis near 4, faster answers matter.

What this means for you: This is the model for good AI in behavioral health. The question is whether your recording, storage, and consent processes are ready when tools like this land in your setting.

3. The AI stuck in traffic

Medicare’s AI-assisted prior authorization pilot, WISeR, is supposed to decide requests within 72 hours. Newly released records show one request took 83 days. One vendor admitted before launch that its software hadn’t finished full testing. The pilot is running in six states and isn’t going anywhere yet.

What this means for you: Payers are automating. When they do, the practices with clean documentation and solid tracking get paid. Everyone else gets to know their hold music very well.

The takeaway

AI is showing up from every direction: clinical tools, payers, and uninvited guests. The organizations that know exactly where their systems, data, and workflows stand will come out ahead.

Don't miss next Tuesday, the Telehealth Tip continues our behavioral health tech series with Outcomes without spreadsheets: measurement-based care that runs itself.

Questions? Hit reply. I read every one.

Talk soon,
Dan

P.S. Behavioral Health Leaders: Not sure where your organization stands? The Virtual Care Operations Assessment shows you exactly what’s working, what’s exposed, and what to fix before 2027, in just 2 weeks. Spots are limited, learn more or sign up today!​

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