New Records Reveal Problems with Medicare’s AI Prior Authorization Experiment
Roughly 1,000 pages of federal records released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, obtained through litigation against CMS, reveal that Medicare's AI-driven prior authorization program, WISeR, has produced widespread delays and denials of medical care. The documents include contracts with tech companies, internal status reports, and complaints from healthcare providers about the program's performance.
Why this matters: Medicare covers tens of millions of older and disabled Americans. When an AI system decides whether someone gets a procedure approved, errors are not abstract — they mean delayed surgery, denied treatment, or a patient fighting a bureaucratic process while they are already sick. These records came out because EFF sued for them. That means without litigation, the public had no window into how the system was working or failing. Government AI tools that touch medical decisions need oversight that does not depend on someone filing a lawsuit to get basic answers.
Who should care: Lawyers · Privacy officers · Compliance · General readers · AI governance · Policy
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