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Scribing Spotlight, Starving Med Students, and Axing Star Measures
December 8, 2025
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Together with
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“When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.”
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Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos
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The first randomized controlled trials for ambient AI have finally arrived, and NEJM AI just gave us the strongest evidence yet that scribes deliver… minimal time savings.
The first study was a mixed bag. UCLA researchers assigned 238 physicians across 14 specialties to one of two scribes – Microsoft DAX and Nabla – or usual care for two months.
- Nabla ended up saving about 23 seconds per visit, while DAX shaved off a whopping 5 seconds (which wasn’t even statistically significant).
- Both scribe groups did however report less burnout and reduced cognitive burden than the usual care controls.
The second study told a similar tale. Physicians at the University of Wisconsin that used Abridge’s AI scribe for 6 weeks trimmed their daily documentation time by 22 minutes.
- Still not a world-changing difference, but the UW physicians also saw significant positive improvements in work exhaustion and well-being.
But wait, there’s more. While those studies didn’t go as far as to suggest a cause for the lackluster time savings, a separate well-timed study from Navina offered a possible mechanism.
- Scribes capture clinical conversations. Those conversations only inform a piece of the note, and those notes are only a piece of the workflow.
- Navina found that incorporating patient medical histories into ambient documentation dramatically improves both note completeness and quality, which also seems like a great way to help physicians avoid lengthy manual chart reviews to fill any remaining gaps.
Then why do scribes get rave reviews? That’s a mystery that’s still up for debate.
- It’s worth noting that “average time savings” include plenty of physicians who barely used the scribe. UCLA only had about a third of physicians pick up the tools, while UW was close to a best-case scenario at 71%.
- It’s also possible that physicians enjoy not having to hold the visit in their head until they can finish their note, and getting rid of that burden is as magical as actual time savings.
The Takeaway
Not everything that can be measured matters, and not everything that matters can be measured. AI scribes might not be productivity tools quite yet, but physicians are clearly finding plenty of reasons to love them until they get there – even if more time isn’t one of them.
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Withings and Babyscripts Tackle Maternal Health
Babyscripts is teaming up with Withings Health Solutions to tackle the leading cause of maternal mortality in the U.S. – hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, including preeclampsia. Learn how remote patient monitoring with BPM Pro 2 is helping Babyscripts keep mothers safe through personalized support when they need it most.
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Under the Hood of Navina’s AI
Navina’s AI engine harnesses over 600 proprietary algorithms to transform fragmented patient data into actionable clinical intelligence at the point of care. It’s shaped with the expertise of physicians to turn multiple data sources (EHR, HIE, claims, care gap files, etc.) into contextualized insights like suspected conditions or evidence for care gap closures – each linked back to the original source. Download the whitepaper to see examples of Navina’s AI in action.
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- CMS Axes Star Measures: Christmas came early for Medicare Advantage payors after CMS reinstated a bonus system for health plans that consistently earn high marks. The agency also proposed eliminating a dozen star rating measures that it decided were too administrative, most notably the infamous call center performance metric that both Humana and United Healthcare took them to court over. The changes are expected to cost taxpayers $13.2B from 2028 to 2036, which sounds pricey until you realize that Medicare Advantage is slated to cost $750B in 2028 alone.
- OpenEvidence Launches Dialer: Another week, another haymaker in the brawl between OpenEvidence and Doximity. The latest hit arrived with the launch of OpenEvidence’s own HIPAA-secure Dialer, a direct shot at Doximity’s most-used tool. Any verified clinician can access the Dialer to call patients using their hospital’s caller ID instead of their personal phone number, with the option to generate a clinical note if needed. The real question now is where OpenEvidence strikes next, and resident soothsayer Brendan Keeler thinks “the most obvious gravitational pull is toward the rest of the communication stack, like video and telemedicine.”
- Lightbeam Acquires Syntax: Lightbeam Health Solutions scooped up risk-based contracting vendor Syntax Health, which is apparently known for its “transparent, actuarial-based approach.” The acquisition brings incentive design, contract modeling, and payor-provider alignment tools directly into Lightbeam’s AI operating system for value-based care. Lightbeam has been piecing together a seriously comprehensive VBC platform, with the latest move following hot on the heels of another partnership with Wakely to launch a suite of ACO optimization tools.
- Deductible Season 2025: It’s that time of year again, and Inbox Health put out its Deductible Season 2025 report to unpack this year’s biggest trends in billing. The report found that the average deductible has climbed 47% over the past decade, and the average deductible for single coverage currently stands at $1,787 (compared to just $991 in 2011). The popularity of high deductible health plans has surged 43% in the last five years, resulting in over half of employees (51%) now being enrolled in one.
- Aledade Locks $500M: Aledade closed a juicy $500M credit facility to fuel the next stage of its value-based care expansion. The new credit reportedly doubles Aledade’s current financing capacity, which will give it more flexibility to manage its expenses and support independent practices with the transition to VBC. The announcement also touts that Aledade now has the largest independent primary care network in the U.S., and that 93% of its ACO’s achieved savings that totaled over $1B in 2024.
- Pitchbook Expects Solid 2026: PitchBook’s 2026 Healthcare Outlook brought an all-around rosy forecast for the year ahead. As of November, we’ve notched 22 health tech funding rounds above $100M (totaling $5.9B in 2025), but valuations have started normalizing and are now grounded more on fundamentals than hopes and dreams. Pitchbook makes the case that 2026 is shaping up to be a compelling healthcare investment environment due to a convergence of AI-driven productivity gains, a reopening IPO window, and mounting policy reforms.
- The FDA’s New TEMPO: The FDA launched a first-of-its-kind Technology-Enabled Meaningful Patient Outcomes pilot to expand access to digital health devices for chronic condition management. The TEMPO pilot goes hand-in-hand with CMS’ equally well-acronymed ACCESS program that also debuted last week. TEMPO will allow 10 pilot manufacturers to commercialize new devices without going through a 510(k) or De Novo process, as long as they support ACCESS’ key focus areas (cardio-kidney-metabolic, MSK, and behavioral health) and collect loads of high quality real-world data as they go.
- Updated Medical Device Lists: In other FDA news, the agency kept up its newfound tempo by updating its list of approved medical devices. It seems like we’re back to a regular update cadence after the FDA took a nearly year-long hiatus in the wake of the 2024 elections. Last week brought up-to-date lists of every medical device currently authorized for marketing in the U.S. across artificial intelligence, augmented / virtual reality, and sensor-based health tech.
- Snow Doesn’t Slow RSNA: For anyone working within arms length of medical imaging, our sister publication The Imaging Wire strapped on its snow shoes in Chicago last week to cover the world’s biggest radiology conference: RSNA. Much of the conversation seems like it was shifting away from individual AI use cases – such as analyzing images – toward solutions that provide operational efficiencies like faster radiology reporting. Make sure to check out TIW’s full roundup if this is your neck of the woods.
- Starving Med Students: The stereotype that med students come from wealthy families might not be too far from the truth. The latest statistics show that between 73% and 79% of students who entered medical school over the last 30 years came from the top two quintiles of household income. The other future doctors weren’t so lucky. A whopping 21% of med students were food insecure – well above the national average of 13.5%.
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Nabla’s Marketing Team is Hiring!
If you’re based in NYC and passionate about improving the practice of medicine, Nabla is looking for a Marketing Operations Associate to help it do just that. Nabla’s ambient AI assistant streamlines the workflows that get in the way of the human connection at the heart of healthcare. They’re on the hunt for a new operational backbone for their marketing team, so apply here if that sounds like you.
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Enrollment Timelines, State by State
Provider enrollment delays are shaping access to care, revenue timelines, and even workforce strategy. Ever wonder how they’re impacting organizations near you? Check out Medallion’s 2025 Geography of Payor Enrollments to see state-by-state enrollment times, how delays are compounding workforce shortages, and why you should factor this into your 2026 planning.
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- Using AI to Democratize Performance Data: You’re tracking clinical performance metrics – HACs, LoS, FCOTS, and more – but does tracking translate to better patient care? Tune in to C8 Health’s expert roundtable on December 10th to learn how leading institutions leverage AI to bring quality data to the bedside. Plus: See how this approach saved UTMB Health over $109k in three months. Grab your spot here.
- Ambient ROI – New Metrics From Health Systems: While Abridge’s value is clear from its rapid adoption and positive clinician feedback, discerning CMIOs, CIOs, and CFOs also require longitudinal and more precise impact measurement, including of operational and workflow processes. With a new ROI methodology, that’s what Abridge delivers for its partners. See how four health systems are using this new tool to measure ROI at a deeper level than ever before. Download here.
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