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Wes Edwards, chief financial officer of primary and urgent care chain Med First, pulls no punches when it comes to money and health care. “We’re a for-profit entity that believes that the more margin that we’re able to make, the more patients we’re able to serve,” he told STAT. Historically, doctors have coded their own Med First visits, which serves more than 220,000 patients in North and South Carolina, predominantly in smaller cities and towns. In June, the network began to code some visits with artificial intelligence in parallel to the doctors’ normal coding. They found that the AI brought in an average of 6% more revenue on the same visits. Though not entirely responsible for Med First’s expansion, the extra revenue has helped Med First as it works to expand from 27 locations to around 40. When revenue grows, “we are able to grow, we’re able to expand services, we’re able to stay open longer, we’re able to fund more services in some of these rural communities,” said Edwards.
