At the LUGPA Annual Meeting in Chicago, a panel discussed how they are currently using artificial intelligence (AI) at their urology practices.
Jared Olafsson, Alexander Epelbaum, MD, and Daoud Dajani, MD, each presented their experiences.
Ambient Scribe Technologies
Ambient scribes, which listen to conversations between clinicians and patients and provide structured clinical notes, can save physicians hours of manual documentation. Lowering the documentation burden also reduces burnout and dissatisfaction. Some current ambient scribe platforms can even generate clinical suggestions, such as diagnosis code recommendations, and post orders in the electronic medical record.
Dr Epelbaum, market president at Integrated Medical Professionals and a practicing urologist, has been instrumental in bringing ambient documentation into daily clinic work. “You kind of want AI to be your silent partner working in the background, not interfering with the physicians or any clinicians’ workflows,” he said.
Recently, Dr Epelbaum moved from a pilot phase to launching ambient scribe technology for the entire New York market. “Over the last 3 months, we have generated 44,000 notes with over 4000 hours of transcription time,” Dr Epelbaum said.
Clinicians are still responsible for the content and accuracy of the notes, however. “If you didn’t say it, it didn’t happen. AI cannot make assumptions, so you need to explicitly say everything that you’re taking the patient through,” Dr Epelbaum said.
Agentic AI
Over the last several months, the possibilities for AI applications have grown immensely. “It has evolved from simple one-task solutions to now being able to dictate something to AI and having it autonomously build it for you,” said Olafsson, business operations manager at Urology San Antonio in Texas. He described using Claude Code to build a physician call schedule manager that analyzes the fairness of the call schedule with historical holiday and weekend data.
“AI is super effective when 2 conditions are met: when the field is data rich and when it is really rules based,” Olafsson said.
Currently, Olafsson uses agentic AI in the call centere tree where you know every call is able to be answered immediately. Then it routes through that tree and ends up at the right place at the right time,” Olafsson said. For callers, agentic AI might also reduce time spent and frustration from navigating different levels of phone trees
Because AI capabilities are evolving so quickly, increasing capacity by 2 to 3 times every 6 months, Olafsson advised against signing long-term technology tool agreements spanning several years. Olafsson also cautioned against moving too quickly. “We want to make sure we clearly understand the problem before seeking a solution.”
AI App Creation
Dr Dajani, chief medical officer at Chesapeake Urology in Maryland, remarked that he uses AI to generate feedback and suggestions for clinic staff. In his practice, he used Replit to develop a platform that analyzes patient survey data, identifies themes, and provides staff with tailored advice on how to improve.
Future AI Tools?
Across the panel, the use of AI for revenue cycle management sparked interest. In the next couple of years, AI could manage coding, identify denial patterns, manage automatic denial letters, and autonomously handle prior authorization requests by scrubbing patient records and communicating with insurance companiesr authorization process would plummet from weeks to just a few minutes
More from LUGPA
Navigating Health Care’s Shifting Market Dynamics to Future-Proof Your Urology Practice
Current Artificial Intelligence Uses in LUGPA Urology Practices
LUGPA Panel Highlights Urology Practice Challenges and Opportunities
Launching a Comprehensive GU Medical Oncology Program in a Community Urology Practice
Conducting Clinical Trials Within Community Urologic Practice
LUGPA’s Annual Meeting Is Helping Urology Practices Thrive
