Healthcare is entering a new era where agentic AI - a powerful type of artificial intelligence - is starting to do important work all by itself. This is different from other AI that just helps people. Agentic AI can think like a manager, organizing and completing entire jobs by connecting different computer programs and hospital systems.

Think of agentic AI like having a very smart helper who can work on many computers at once. This helper can take information from one system, understand what to do, go to another system, and finish the job without anyone telling it each step. As one expert explained, agentic AI "acts as a true orchestrator rather than a passive coordinator". It connects electronic medical records, scheduling systems, insurance portals, and patient apps to create smooth experiences for both doctors and patients.

One place where agentic AI is making a huge difference is with prior authorization - the process where insurance companies approve treatments. Right now, this process is slow and frustrating. Doctors spend many hours finding documents, filling out forms, and calling insurance companies back and forth. With agentic AI, an intelligent system can figure out what authorization is needed, grab the right information from the hospital computer system, fill in insurance company forms with correct details, send requests, and watch for approval. If more information is needed, the AI can alert the doctor automatically. Waystar, a company that helps hospitals with money and billing, introduced agentic AI workflows and says their system already prevented $15.5 billion in insurance denials in under one year.

Oracle Health showed how this works with their improved Clinical AI Agent. This system listens to conversations between doctors and patients, then automatically prepares orders for blood tests, X-rays, medicines, and referrals to specialists. The orders are ready for the doctor to review and send, saving lots of typing time.

Another important job for agentic AI is care coordination - making sure patients get the right care from different doctors and hospitals. Normally, hospital workers must call patients many times by phone and email to schedule follow-up appointments and arrange home health services. With agentic AI, a system can schedule these appointments automatically, arrange services, update patient information, and send reminders - all without doctors or staff having to do anything.

Clinical documentation and coding - writing down what happened during a doctor visit - is also changing with agentic AI. The AI can listen during patient appointments, write down what happened in an organized way, add the correct insurance codes, and even submit bills to insurance companies right away. This means coders can focus on harder cases instead of routine work.

Patient experiences are also getting better with agentic AI. Amazon One Medical in the United States created a Health AI assistant built into their phone app that explains test results, helps manage medicines, and books appointments. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health, which talks to patients about their health and can look at their personal medical records. Anthropic, another AI company, released Claude for Healthcare, which helps with insurance approvals, care planning, medical coding, and patient triage using HIPAA-safe tools.

In Canada, the government is also taking action. Canada introduced new legislation to help build a more connected healthcare system using AI innovations. This shows that countries around the world recognize that AI can improve patient care and make hospitals work more efficiently.

However, there are challenges. Setting up agentic AI systems is expensive - ranging from $50,000 for specialized helpers to over $1 million for large hospital systems. Many hospitals have old computer systems that don't share information well, making it hard for AI to work properly. Doctors also worry that too much automation might make patients trust hospitals less or that doctors might stop thinking carefully about decisions.

Experts say that data integration - getting all hospital information to work together smoothly - is the biggest challenge for using agentic AI well. Once hospitals fix this problem, agentic AI could transform healthcare by handling routine tasks, giving doctors more time for patients, and creating a healthcare system that feels less confusing and frustrating for everyone.