News You Can Use – December 2025

US Healthcare: Now Featuring Robots, Sepsis Confusion, and Spam

This month’s episode of “News You Can Use” on Healthcare NOW Radio features news from the month of December 2025.

The show that gives you a quick insight into the latest news, twists, turns, and debacles going on in healthcare with my friend and co-host Craig Joseph, MD (@CraigJoseph) Chief Medical Officer at Nordic Consulting Partners and myself, where every diagnosis comes with a side of humor. We hope you stay curious, stay engaged, and keep seeking the truth in healthcare in a world that thrives on information.

Buckle up as we dive into the ER of excitement, the ICU of irrationality, and the waiting room of wacky wisdom in this month’s show that features a review of:

• Predictions
• AI Foundations and Healthcare Use
• Where to Get Your Medical Advice
• Flying Unsupervised

To close out the year, we offer you our discussion on the world’s most expensive absurd drama that is also called US Healthcare, so grab your popcorn and settle in for this month’s edition of News You Can Use.

We kick off our discussion on the AI hype-train currently barreling through healthcare, and look at this post “How to Explain AI in Healthcare” that features a pyramid approach to assessing the technology that describes a hierarchy of AI, from the little “bots” (or “agentic AI“) scurrying around doing admin busywork, up to the lofty and often wrong “predictive AI” that tries to guess if a patient is about to crash. The big punchline? This top-level predictive AI can be about as reliable as weather forecasting (although in fairness, that has gotten better). Unfortunately, it’s often wrong operating as a mysterious “black box”, making doctors feel foolish for listening to it.

AI Can Land a Plane, But Can’t Fix Healthcare (Or LinkedIn)

In an interesting side note to the discussion, we found this story of incapacitated pilots of a Beechcraft King Air B200 at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield, Colorado, that landed itself with a robot voice, sadly so robotic it probably confused the local air traffic controllers. So, yeah, the robots can land a plane, but they still can’t tell us why they think you have sepsis accurately.

We move to the overcrowded space for New Year predictions that come around every year, around this time. Bucking the trend of focus on the AI boom, we share our anticipated challenges centered on legislative action that will force many to lose their health insurance and the inevitable flood to the already-overwhelmed emergency rooms for care they can’t pay for, turning preventative medicine into a luxury item. And Craig saw the healthcare guidance going “Back to the Future” to a 1970s-style free-for-all, where recommendations are a patchwork mess, and the CDC has become a suggestion box. It’s like we’re all in a DeLorean, but the flux capacitor is broken, and Biff is in charge.

Finally, we wrapped up complaining about the true plague of our time: LinkedIn spam. We’re talking AI doom, systemic collapse, and yet the thing that nearly broke us was the mid-show deluge of messages from “startup HR managers” who’ve “carefully reviewed our resumes.” The cherry on top? The sketchy reach-outs from suspiciously attractive profiles that are so obvious, they’re almost insulting. Our advice? Report everyone. But as we confess, sadly, it seems to do absolutely nothing. So, in a year where AI might kill us or save us and the healthcare system is appears to be unraveling, the most persistent enemy is a bot with a stock photo and a bad sales pitch.

Happy New Year, everyone. Try not to get your next career opportunity from “CryptoHealthFanatic23.”

AI Might Save Us, Healthcare Might Collapse, LinkedIn Definitely Will

We hope you enjoy our take on the latest news and developments in healthcare and want to help you keep untangling the web of information, dodging the sensational pitfalls, and emerging victorious, albeit a little dizzy, on the other side. In the end, the stories we uncover and the discussions we ignite all shape the narrative of our shared future. We want to hear from you, especially if you have topics covered or questions you’d like answered. You can reach out directly via the contact form on my website, or send a message on LinkedIn to Craig or me.

Until next time keep solving healthcare’s mysteries before they become your emergencies and stay healthy, stay skeptical, and for heaven’s sake, check who’s listed as your emergency contact.

This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.

News You Can Use gives you a quick insight into the latest news, twists, turns and debacles going on in healthcare with Dr. Nick and Dr. Craig and where every diagnosis comes with a side of side-splitting humor. Your hosts are Dr Nick a long-time host, innovator and healthcare wizard who can prescribe a digital dose of innovation to cure even the most ailing operational inefficiencies. And Dr. Craig Joseph is the healthcare guru who can diagnose both patient and software glitches with equal precision, making sure hospitals run smoother than a well-oiled robot doc.

So buckle up, because we’re diving into the ER of excitement, the ICU of irrationality, and the waiting room of wacky wisdom.

Stay curious, stay engaged, and keep seeking the truth in a world that thrives on information. Because in the end, the stories we uncover, and the discussions we ignite, they all shape the narrative of our shared future.

And keep laughing at the absurdity, keep rolling your eyes at the headlines, and keep spreading the news like your favorite gossip. Who knows, maybe someday you’ll be the breaking news story we’re all talking about!

Weekdays at 4:00 am, 12:00 pm, and 8:00 pm ET.

Follow the Social Hashtag at #HealthNewsYouCanUse