CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, MD, is not only encouraging AI use across his agency but also with Medicare beneficiaries, he said in a recent interview with HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf.
“Why wouldn’t we, within a year, be able to give agentic AI tools to every single American beneficiary of Medicare?” Dr. Oz asked.
Dr. Oz said he can foresee use cases of AI reminding beneficiaries of premiums and prescriptions to pick up, as well as facilitating communication with doctors and answering general questions. He also laid out diabetic-specific applications, such as offering meal plans and reminding patients to buy and take their insulin.
Anita Allemand, PharmD, is Elevance Health’s chief growth officer. During an October interview with Becker’s, she said the Medicare generation is now “more capable and accepting” of AI.
“It has to feel like this is helping [members], not that this is yet another barrier,” she said of these technologies.
Agentic AI took center stage at the 2026 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas, where Dr. Oz also spoke. However, for health systems, AI agents have typically been operating on the administrative, not clinical, side. Still, some leaders think AI will soon be fully embedded in tools versus an active talking point.
