Expert Conversations in PM&R Practice: The AI-Powered Physiatrist’s Toolkit for Smarter Documentation, Stronger Appeals, and Enhanced Practice Efficiency (Enduring)-Session Recording

Video Transcription

Video Summary

This educational webinar, hosted by the AAPM&R, featured physiatry experts discussing the integration of AI tools to improve documentation, appeals, and practice efficiency. Dr. Chris Lewis introduced clinical informatics and the rapid adoption of electronic health records (EHRs), emphasizing ambient AI scribes like "Abridge" that transcribe patient-provider conversations to generate clinical notes. These tools improve provider well-being by reducing documentation time, with studies showing users save hours weekly and report decreased burnout. However, challenges include hallucinations (AI errors), specialty customization, speaker attribution, and incomplete integration with other EHR data.<br /><br />Dr. Juwan Quarg focused on AI’s role in handling increasingly burdensome prior authorizations. With denial rates for physiatry procedures and post-acute care sharply rising—exacerbated by payers’ own use of AI—he highlighted how AI solutions can analyze payer criteria, predict approval likelihood, automate documentation and appeals, and help practices efficiently navigate denials. Despite the promise, he warned about workflow reliability, data security, and legal considerations regarding AI use in clinical care and consent.<br /><br />Dr. Evan Zeldin addressed AI applications for scheduling, workflow optimization, and literature summarization. He discussed task management tools like Todoist and Cal.com that use AI to automate scheduling, reminders, and to-do lists, enhancing time management. For clinical research, specialized medical language models (e.g., Open Evidence) provide rapid, referenced literature summaries that outperform traditional searches like PubMed, though users should verify accuracy. He underscored cautious AI use, noting prevalent errors ("hallucinations") and the need to restrict AI to low-risk, reversible tasks.<br /><br />Panelists foresee AI evolving from reactive assistants to proactive “agentic AI” that could transform physiatry workflows, yet emphasize ongoing challenges of accuracy, integration, and ethics. The session encouraged engagement with AI communities and further exploration at upcoming conferences, highlighting AI's potential to alleviate documentation burdens, improve prior authorization responses, and streamline practice management in physiatry.

Keywords

AI in physiatry

clinical informatics

electronic health records

ambient AI scribes

documentation efficiency

provider burnout reduction

prior authorization automation

AI workflow optimization

medical language models

AI hallucinations

agentic AI

ethical considerations in AI