Following OpenAI's lead, shortly after the release of ChatGPT Health, Anthropic announced the launch of Claude for Healthcare on Sunday. This is a suite of tools specifically designed for healthcare providers, payers, and patients.
Similar to ChatGPT Health, Claude for Healthcare allows users to sync health data from phones, smartwatches, and other platforms (both OpenAI and Anthropic state their models will not use this data for training). However, Anthropic's product promises more sophisticated capabilities compared to ChatGPT Health, which appears more focused on a gradually rolling out patient-facing chat experience.
Despite concerns from some industry professionals about the risks of large language models potentially generating hallucinations when providing medical advice, Anthropic's "agent skills" appear promising. Claude has added so-called "connectors," enabling the AI to access platforms and databases, thereby accelerating the research process and report generation for payers and providers. These include the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Coverage Database; the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10); the National Provider Identifier Standard; and PubMed.
Anthropic explained in a blog post that Claude for Healthcare can leverage its connectors to speed up prior authorization reviews—a process requiring doctors to submit additional information to insurance providers to determine coverage for a medication or treatment. "Clinicians often report spending more time on documentation and paperwork than on actual patient care," said Mike Krieger, Anthropic's Chief Product Officer, during a demonstration of the product.
For doctors, submitting prior authorization paperwork is more of an administrative task than one requiring their specialized training and expertise. This is an area more suitable for automation rather than the actual process of providing medical advice... although Claude will also handle that.
People have already begun relying on large language models for medical advice. OpenAI stated that 230 million people discuss their health issues with ChatGPT weekly, and undoubtedly, Anthropic is also focused on this use case.
Of course, both Anthropic and OpenAI caution consumers that they should seek medical professionals for more reliable, tailored guidance.
