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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">Health Tech | Fierce Healthcare</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/zocdoc-partners-yelp-allow-real-time-scheduling" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Zocdoc, Yelp partner to boost scheduling access</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 23rd 2026, 13:45</div>
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<p><div class="col content" morss_own_score="5.414634146341464" morss_score="32.337339460351124">
<p>Yelp users can now book healthcare appointments directly after searching for providers through a newly <a href="https://www.zocdoc.com/about/news/zocdoc-now-powers-booking-on-yelp/">announced</a> partnership with Zocdoc. </p>
<p>The capability is now available on Yelp’s iOS app on provider pages and through the platform’s new artificial intelligence chatbot Yelp Assistant. Users can view real-time, in-network availability and schedule appointments through Zocdoc, the announcement said. The companies plan to expand the capability to Android and desktop users later this year.</p>
<p>“We’re excited to partner with Zocdoc to make it easier for consumers to find and book with in-network healthcare providers,” said Craig Saldanha, Yelp's chief product officer, in a statement. “By connecting consumers with providers at the moment they’re ready to schedule—including through Yelp Assistant—we’re reducing friction and helping providers reach patients through a platform they already trust.”</p>
<p>According to Zocdoc, the partnership reflects the company’s expansion beyond its own marketplace to allow patients to schedule appointments wherever they are looking for care. The new partnership also allows providers to book more appointments “with no additional workflow,” the announcement said. Appointments are scheduled through existing electronic health record (EHR) systems or through Zocdoc.</p>
<p>Zocdoc founder and CEO Oliver Kharraz, M.D., said in a statement that booking a doctor’s appointment “should be as easy as booking dinner.”</p>
<p>"Healthcare too often breaks at the start, when patients are ready to act but can’t easily transact,” Kharraz said. “By powering seamless scheduling on Yelp, we’re turning that intent into access and helping patients go from searching to being seen. This is the next step toward making access work for patients, wherever their journey begins.”</p>
<p>Aside from Yelp, Zocdoc powers scheduling on providers’ websites, Google Business Profiles and<a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/blue-shield-california-teams-zocdoc-provider-scheduling"> insurance directories</a>. Last May, the scheduling platform <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/zocdoc-launches-voice-ai-tool-zo-streamline-phone-visit-bookings">launched</a> an artificial intelligence agent dubbed Zo to book appointments by phone. Alongside the announcement, Kharraz told Fierce Healthcare the platform is also looking to build out capabilities to coordinate prescription refills. </p>
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<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/openai-launches-chatgpt-clinicians-free-ai-tool-physicians-nps-and" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Clinicians for medical notetaking</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 23rd 2026, 13:45</div>
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<p><div class="col content" morss_own_score="5.458745874587459" morss_score="77.8710244346507">
<p>OpenAI unveiled on Wednesday ChatGPT for Clinicians, a version of ChatGPT designed to support clinical tasks like documentation and medical research.</p>
<p>The AI company says it's making the AI tool free for any verified physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant or pharmacist, starting in the U.S. OpenAI says it plans to expand access to additional countries and groups over time. </p>
<p>The company says clinician usage of ChatGPT has more than doubled over the past year. The American Medical Association reports that physicians’ use of artificial intelligence has <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/ama-physicians-use-ai-doubled-2023-2026">more than doubled</a> since 2023, with 81% surveyed by the AMA reporting that they currently use the technology in a professional context. </p>
<p>The new AI tool follows OpenAI's January launch of a dedicated healthcare product, ChatGPT for Healthcare, along with a consumer-focused product, ChatGPT Health, to help individuals understand their health information and get personalized answers to medical questions. </p>
<p>ChatGPT for Healthcare is a workspace for researchers, clinicians and administrators, powered by GPT-5 models that went through doctor-led testing. Early adopters already rolling out ChatGPT for Healthcare include Boston Children’s Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, AdventHealth, HCA Healthcare, Baylor Scott & White Health, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the University of California, San Francisco, OpenAI said back in January.</p>
<p>Enabling free access to ChatGPT for Clinicians is the next step and builds on the company's foundation of continual model evaluation for healthcare, OpenAI executives said in a <a href="https://openai.com/index/making-chatgpt-better-for-clinicians/">blog post</a>.</p>
<p>OpenAI is moving deeper into healthcare as AI startups in the sector build out their AI capabilities to expand across clinical workflows and become AI copilots for clinicians. Abridge, a company that started as an AI scribe, is scaling up its <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/abridge-expands-clinical-decision-support-capabilities-uptodate-partnership">clinical decision support solution </a>to offer physicians real-time clinical evidence and guidance. By contrast, OpenEvidence, an AI-powered medical search engine, built out a clinical AI assistant that transcribes patient visits as well as a <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/openevidence-rolls-out-ai-medical-coding-feature">medical coding tool.</a></p>
<p>OpenAI also introduced <a href="https://cdn.openai.com/dd128428-0184-4e25-b155-3a7686c7d744/HealthBench-Professional.pdf">HealthBench Professional, </a>an open benchmark for evaluating large language models on clinical tasks. The benchmark is organized around three common use cases: care consult, writing and documentation and medical research. This new benchmarking tool builds on <a href="https://openai.com/index/healthbench/">HealthBench</a>, an open-source benchmark OpenAI <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/openai-pushes-further-healthcare-release-healthbench-evaluate-ai-models">released</a> last year that's designed to measure the performance and safety of large language models in healthcare.</p>
<p>The new benchmarking tool uses "physician-authored conversations and rubrics, multi-stage physician adjudication, and careful data filtering to measure performance and safety in common clinician chats," according to OpenAI.</p>
<p>As a baseline, the company asked human physicians to produce their own responses for tasks in their specialty, with unbounded time and web access. Through HealthBench Professional evaluations, OpenAI found that GPT‑5.4 in the ChatGPT for Clinicians workspace outperforms base GPT‑5.4, all other OpenAI and external models, and human physicians, the company said.</p>
<p>OpenAI says it worked with "hundreds of physician advisors" to inform and improve capabilities for ChatGPT for Clinicians.</p>
<p>ChatGPT for Clinicians offers free access to OpenAI's current frontier models for healthcare use cases to help address questions, research and documentation. Clinicians can also turn common workflows into reusable skills so ChatGPT can follow the same steps each time for tasks like referral letters, prior auth and patient instructions, the company said in the blog post.</p>
<p>The tool also offers a clinical search tool that provides access to evidence from "millions of reputable, peer-reviewed medical sources," OpenAI executives said.</p>
<p>As clinicians research clinical questions in ChatGPT, eligible evidence review can automatically count toward continuing medical education credits, without separate courses or extra paperwork, according to the company.</p>
<p>Certain eligible accounts can also set up a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with OpenAI to support HIPAA-compliant use when access to protected health information (PHI) is required. OpenAI executives noted that many clinical tasks don't require PHI.</p>
<p>OpenAI also asserts that conversations are not used to train models and the tool offers features like multi-factor authentication to protect the security of sensitive information.</p>
<p>The company claims its AI models are continuously evaluated for health performance and safety. Physician advisors have reviewed more than 700,000 model responses that reflect how clinicians and patients may use ChatGPT in the real world, the company said.</p>
<p>Before releasing ChatGPT for Clinicians, physician advisors tested 6,924 conversations in their daily work across clinical care, documentation and research. Doctors rated 99.6% of responses as safe and accurate, OpenAI said. </p>
<p>"On a subset of 355 examples where, for each, three independent physicians specified ground-truth citations, ChatGPT for Clinicians cited those sources more often than human physicians. Even so, ChatGPT for Clinicians is designed to support clinicians with information, not replace their judgment or expertise," OpenAI executives wrote in the blog post.</p>
<p>The company also points to third-party evaluations like <a href="https://crfm.stanford.edu/helm/medhelm/latest/#/leaderboard"><u>Stanford’s MedHELM</u></a> and <a href="https://sophont.med/blog/medmarks"><u>MedMarks</u></a> that ranked OpenAI’s models above other LLMs for real-world healthcare use.<a href="https://sophont.med/blog/medmarks"></a></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/cms-fda-announce-new-program-speed-medicare-coverage-breakthrough-medical-devices" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">CMS, FDA unveil RAPID program for breakthrough device payment</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 23rd 2026, 13:45</div>
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<p><div class="col content" morss_own_score="5.571045576407506" morss_score="85.64186893245835">
<p>The Trump administration unveiled a new program to speed up Medicare coverage for breakthrough devices, touting that the new pathway cuts red tape for medical device companies to gain reimbursement.</p>
<p>The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Thursday the Regulatory Alignment for Predictable and Immediate Device (RAPID) coverage pathway for FDA-designated Class II and Class III breakthrough devices.</p>
<p>The new pathway creates better alignment between FDA review of medical devices and Medicare coverage decisions, John Brooks, CMS Deputy Director and Chief Policy and Regulatory Officer, and Senior Counselor of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters during a press call Thursday morning.</p>
<p>The RAPID pathway is designed to accelerate access to certain FDA-designated Class II and Class III devices for people with Medicare coverage.</p>
<p>"It presents an unprecedented alignment and coordination between CMS and FDA as well as we'll be working with manufacturers immediately by the beginning of the IDE (Investigational Device Exemption) process," Brooks said. "CMS will coordinate with FDA to provide guidance to manufacturers to help them understand what targets they need to hit in order to achieve coverage immediately upon approval in the CMS program. Under this program, basically, CMS will be able to provide coverage within 60 to 90 days of FDA approval across the Medicare population for new devices that offer promising therapies for individuals."</p>
<p>Launched by the FDA in 2015, the Breakthrough Device designation expedites the FDA review process for devices that are novel and could provide more effective treatment for severe conditions. </p>
<p>As of December 31, 2025, the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) have granted 1,246 breakthrough device designations.</p>
<p>CMS is now pausing the existing Transitional Coverage for Emerging Technologies (TCET) program for new candidates as CMS focuses on the successful implementation of the RAPID coverage pathway, the agency said in a press release.</p>
<p>A CMS senior official told reporters on the press call that the RAPID program differs from the TCET program as the agency will be working more closely with the FDA and device manufacturers earlier in the technology development lifecycle so that evidence generated for FDA review can also support Medicare coverage decisions. The new coverage pathway is designed to significantly reduce delays that have historically occurred between FDA market authorization and Medicare national coverage determinations. </p>
<p>"The Breakthrough program has been a great success and its history thanks to the great folks at CDRH, and increasingly, we have heard from innovators on the medical device space that FDA may no longer be the biggest concern as then, how do they get coverage on the back end after clearance?," said Grace Graham, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Policy, Legislation, and International Affairs and Senior Counselor of the HHS, during the press call.</p>
<p>The RAPID coverage pathway is for Breakthrough Devices that address unmet medical needs among Medicare beneficiaries and is available for certain Class II devices participating in the <a href="https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/how-study-and-market-your-device/total-product-life-cycle-advisory-program-tap" title="Total Product Life Cycle Advisory Program (TAP)">FDA Total Product Life Cycle Advisory Program (TAP)</a> and Class III devices regardless of whether they are participating in TAP. To be eligible for the RAPID coverage pathway, devices must be the subject of an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) study that enrolls Medicare beneficiaries and studies clinical health outcomes agreed upon by the FDA and CMS. </p>
<p>This new program will link device manufacturers to CMS experts early in development to understand what clinical outcomes are most relevant for Medicare beneficiaries, Trump administration officials said. A coordinated approach allows CMS and the FDA to rely on premarket evidence to inform both the FDA premarket review and Medicare coverage processes. </p>
<p>For several years, CMS, under both the first Trump administration as well as the Biden administration, has tried to align reimbursement for novel medical devices with the FDA's Breakthrough Device program.</p>
<p>In 2021, under the Trump administration, CMS <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/insurers-slam-cms-proposal-to-hasten-medicare-coverage-breakthrough-medical-devices">introduced </a>the Medicare Coverage of Innovative Technology (MCIT) rule, providing four years of automatic, national Medicare coverage upon FDA authorization. The Biden administration then <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/cms-wants-to-pull-trump-era-pathway-speeds-up-medicare-coverage-breakthrough-medical-devices">scrapped that rule </a>and finalized the T<a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/cms-touts-transparency-and-expediency-finalized-transitional-medical-device-coverage">ransitional Coverage for Emerging Technologies (TCET) program </a>in 2024 as a Medicare payment pathway.</p>
<p>Many stakeholders in the medical device market have criticized the time lapse between FDA market authorization and CMS coverage determinations. Under the TCET program, CMS did not work with the FDA and medical device companies before the trial design so there was misalignment with generating data to support the Medicare coverage determination process, a CMS senior officials said on the call.</p>
<p>By joining forces, the FDA and CMS can better align evidence expectations earlier in the process to reduce duplication and improve efficiency, officials said.</p>
<p>The new pathway program also will enable CMS to approve more medical devices for Medicare coverage by leveraging existing processes, resources and expertise through the FDA, the senior CMS official said on the call. Currently, there are 40 devices that would qualify for the RAPID pathway and CMS leaders estimate an additional 20 devices could participate. Under TCET, CMS capped the program to about five products every year, the senior official said.</p>
<p>The RAPID program provides more transparency for device manufacturers as they approach the FDA and CMS, Brooks said.</p>
<p>"We're going to demystify the process by providing a clear signal to device manufacturers of exactly what targets they need to hit to get Medicare coverage, and that's enormously valuable, if you think about the investment timelines for device manufacturers who are trying to bring life-saving treatments to individuals," he said.</p>
<p>The program also marks a tighter collaboration between FDA and CMS as data submitted to the FDA will be shared with CMS in real time, Brooks noted.</p>
<p>Medical devices approved for the RAPID pathway would receive permanent Medicare coverage, officials said, as opposed to the MCIT program that provided coverage for only four years.</p>
<p>“FDA and CMS each play a critical role in getting new medical devices to patients, and they work most effectively when aligned sooner in that process,” CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in a statement. “The RAPID coverage pathway brings our two agencies together earlier, cutting red tape for innovators, and helping beneficiaries access new, life-changing health technology faster.”</p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
<p><strong>This information is taken from free public RSS feeds published by each organization for the purpose of public distribution. Readers are linked back to the article content on each organization's website. This email is an unaffiliated unofficial redistribution of this freely provided content from the publishers. </strong></p>
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