The PAI surveyed 1,003 employed US physicians (not in self-owned practice) April 14 to May 4, 2026 to see what the working conditions were like. They uncovered some substantial disconnects.

Of the surveyed doctors who were employed by hospitals, health systems or insurance companies the risk of moral injury is high. Two standout stats from this report are how many physicians are told, implicitly or explicitly, to refer patients in-network.

Those employed by a health insurance company face the highest barriers.

It's no secret that HCPs hate Prior Authorizations (for example, this Wire article from 2022) and 76% say they delay treatment, among other patient risks.

Notice 60% have their clinical recommendations overruled by PAs. This also feeds into the moral injury we talked about above.

Time spent on this work adds up. 32% say 4+ hours per week (technically 3+ but the average of the group is 4) on PA overhead.

A third factor aggravating physicians is trouble getting their patients appointments. In general, 73% say this happens frequently.

And when a patient needs an urgent 48-hour referral delays still happen too often.

We have shown a lot of the stress factors that are affecting physicians in 2026 but there are many more in this study. Grab a copy to enhance your understanding of your physician audiences.

Because this report includes all of the source data and not just cherry-picked stats it gets the coveted, and apparently valuable, Must Download award (not a real thing -Ed.).

A paper in the Journal of the AMA looks at EHR responses to patient messages and the differences in response rates. The paper shows differences by race and ethnicity on the order of 3.7% but also by different text elements in the messages themselves. 

Overall, 77.5% of patient messages get a reply.

The elements used in messages could have significant impact on whether a message got a reply. Questions that address the clinician and are of medium length got the most responses.

A new study from Pew Research surveyed 3,488 U.S. adults from June 22 to 28 to find out how they use AI chatbots for health. Interestingly, they found 34% ever use AI chatbots for health purposes, lower than the 41% they found in April.

There are many reasons for using LLMs for health topics, and it's important to note that these numbers are representative of the entire population, not just those with a health condition.

When asked if they had ever used an LLM for these reasons, Americans answered:

Not everyone is using LLMs for health topics, but of those that are 95% say they are helpful.

Considering that health information from other people isn't that reliable either, this is a good result.

Even of those who do use LLMs for health topics, comfort with sharing their own data is limited. 71% are reasonably comfortable, which makes sense for the subgroup, but 26% are not.

Considering this is the 34% subset that use LLMs for health, that's a point of friction for further growth. The full report has breakdowns by demographic that can help marketers decide how much to push AI for their audiences.

This is a rare week where we put out two stories from the same source. Pew Research revealed what Americans think about AI use in their healthcare. 

If an HCP's health system is using Epic's new AI tools, Americans of all ages expect them to disclose that fact. 

Providers need to get ahead of this problem before it grows. Currently, Americans put their doctors at the top of their healthcare trust ranking. With many not knowing or suspecting that AI may have been used without disclosure in their healthcare, that number could erode.

A new report from Attest is based on a survey of 1,000 US adults fielded in June which looks at how media is consumed in 2026. 

Technically, the question is "a typical weekday" but still that's basically daily. YouTube takes a solid lead here at an astonishing 90%.

YouTube's win is even with Meta's Facebook and Instagram combined.

Streaming services, which are essentially all long-form content, manage only a three minute win over YouTube. We know where our money is for 2027.

A substantial portion of Gen Z are still in school so it's not surprising they read more, but still, good on them. 

They also just edge out Millennials for video. And when it comes to YouTube, our daily favorite, no one can touch them.

There is a lot more in the Attest report, we just kept it to the top line numbers for your next media planning deck.

Healthcare costs are the top economic issue on Americans' minds as they head into the mid-terms. Gas, rent, and food are all close behind but health is at the top. Anyone familiar with the interplay of government programs, blended programs like Medicare Advantage, insurers, PBMs, providers both for- and non-profit, pharma, and medtech knows that the issues are deep-seated. This makes for a minefield for politicians.

When approached from just the health side, costs are still the top issue. The affordability of other programs such as Medicare and Medicaid are also high on the list.

Cumulus, the radio marketing group, released a report on how audio audiences are awesome for AI. That's nice and all, but instead we pulled some of the general stats that aren't audio-related.

Compared to the average American, marketers use around 2x more AI. 

That said, 49% of the US population uses AI for personal or work purposes and considering the LLM race started in November, 2023 (coming up on three years) that's impressive penetration.

Along with higher usage comes more positive sentiment. When asked about different emotions related to AI, Marketers were predominantly positive while the general population was dominantly negative.

This finding puzzles us. Gemini overtook ChatGPT among those who use AI at 30% of users compared to 28% for the OpenAI product.

We're not sure if perhaps Gemini was introduced as "Google Gemini" or something like that which could trigger brand awareness. Otherwise, it's just a mystery.

A study of 2,222 citizens of six countries (the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, and Spain) shows that data interpretation is their top question for their doctors.

Still, these numbers are fairly low. Just under one-quarter of HCPs see patients weekly who look for this guidance. And if you consider the number of patients each doctor sees, that ends up being a small number of the patient population.

it's unclear if patients simply know what the data mean or if they don't want to bring up the wearable data with their providers.

In Becker's Health IT there is an article about Epic AI tools and their unpredictable costs relating to Token usage.

WebMD Ignite is an offering from the health information service that looks to help providers stand up digital offerings quickly.

This partnership is leveraging WebMD's Health Education and Access for Rural Transformation (HEART) project to reach out to States.

This survey is of the youngest Gen-Z generation who are 14+ and in high school. It doesn't get into health but does look at the kids' relationship with school and teachers. 

After objections raised by the AMA over "malicious compliance" from insurers, CMS has updated it's Prior Authorization Metrics Reporting (PDF) rules. The egregious activities included shenanigans such as unclear code lists that ran to 832 pages.

The four updates are:

These rules are for items and services only, drugs are excluded. PA rules for drugs are set to begin March 31, 2028 for the 2027 time period.