Global healthcare faces a projected shortfall of 11 million workers by 2030, and providers are turning to agentic AI to fill the gap. Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York is a leading example: AI agents now process 1,100 insurance claims per month, cut appeals time from 45 minutes to 5, and improved appeal success rates from 65% to 100%. In partnership with Ema Unlimited, HSS has also deployed a 24/7 AI triage and scheduling service that routes patients to the right specialist based on condition, insurance, and availability. Key implementation lessons include building a unified data strategy to eliminate fragmentation, embedding human-in-the-loop safeguards for clinical decisions, and treating agentic AI as a general-purpose technology rather than a narrow point solution. HSS's chief digital officer envisions AI agents eventually handling 90% of non-clinical tasks, freeing clinicians for complex, high-touch patient care.
