Dr. Mehmet Oz, the new administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), spent much of his first all-staff meeting on Monday promoting the use of artificial intelligence at the agency and praising Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again Initiative,” sources tell WIRED.
During the meeting, Oz discussed possibly prioritizing AI avatars over frontline health care workers.
Oz claimed that if a patient went to a doctor for a diabetes diagnosis, it would be $100 per hour, while an appointment with an AI avatar would cost considerably less, at just $2 an hour. Oz also claimed that patients have rated the care they’ve received from an AI avatar as equal to or better than a human doctor. (Research suggests patients are actually more skeptical of medical advice given by AI.) Because of technologies like machine learning and AI, Oz claimed, it is now possible to scale “good ideas” in an affordable and fast way.
CMS has explored the use of AI for the last several years, according to archived versions of an agency website dedicated to the topic, and the agency released an updated “AI Playbook” in 2022. But those efforts appear to have focused on finding ways to leverage vast CMS datasets, rather than involving AI directly in patient care.
“Dr. Oz brings decades of experience as a physician and an innovator to CMS. We are not going to respond to deliberately misleading leaks about a nearly hour-long meeting he held with all CMS staff,” said CMS spokesperson Catherine Howden in an emailed statement.
The Senate confirmed Oz as CMS’s new administrator on April 3. CMS, which runs Medicare, Medicaid, and Healthcare.gov, is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where health care conspiracist RFK Jr. currently serves as department secretary. CMS spent more than $1.5 trillion in fiscal year 2024, which accounted for more than one-fifth of total government outlays. The agency employs nearly 7,000 employees, and provides health care coverage for almost half of the US. Current CMS employees describe the agency as “the most policy-dense organization in government” where the administrator must make decisions on where to spend billions of dollars on certain treatments in a zero-sum environment.
“Please join incoming CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and other senior leaders to learn more about his vision and priorities for CMS,” stated the meeting description, which was called for Monday at 1:00 pm EST. “This is an internal event, and all CMS staff are invited to participate virtually. Staff who are onsite at CMS office locations should consider gathering in available offices or conference space.”
Oz has seemingly never worked in health care policy before, but served as a physician for many years before becoming the star of The Dr. Oz Show. He has promoted a number of provably incorrect medical tips—including the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as a treatment for Covid—and weight-loss pills that Oz admitted in a 2014 Senate subcommittee hearing “don’t have the scientific muster to present as fact.” He also unsuccessfully ran for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, losing to current senator John Fetterman.
At the meeting, Oz spoke extensively about his family’s history, the origins of his name, and his educational background at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania (including his football career), before talking about CMS.
Oz told CMS employees that it was their “patriotic duty” to take care of themselves as it would help decrease the cost of health care, citing the costs of running Medicare and Medicaid throughout the country. (During his Senate confirmation hearing for CMS administrator, Oz also claimed “it is our patriotic duty to be healthy,” connecting personal exercise to the overall reduction of expenses for Medicare and Medicaid.)
Oz spoke at length during the meeting about obesity in the US and what it costs CMS, without citing any provable statistics. He said that addressing obesity was one of his top priorities. (The Biden administration had suggested that Medicare and Medicaid cover costs for weight-loss drugs, an initiative that the Trump administration has so far declined to expand. Oz has repeatedly drawn criticism for promoting “miracle” weight-loss cures on The Dr. Oz Show.)
“I’m not sure he knows what we do here,” said one CMS employee who listened to the call. “He was talking about nutrition and exercise. That’s not what Medicare does. We care for people in nursing homes. We deal with dying people.”
When asked how he would prefer to be briefed on complex policy issues, Oz told staffers, You’ll find that I am not purposely but deliberately naive about a lot of issues. Sources tell WIRED that this seemed to them like a roundabout way for Oz to say that he is focused not on personal or political motivations, but the facts. Oz also claimed that CMS needed to do a better job of addressing “fraud and waste” at the agency, two purported targets of Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Oz also endorsed MAHA: Make America Healthy Again, an HHS priority that was originally a cornerstone of RFK Jr.’s 2024 presidential campaign. In the CMS meeting, Oz stated that MAHA is all about “curiosity.” (Kennedy, who has championed MAHA, has also repeatedly and dangerously promoted anti-vaccine opinions, doctors, and activists.)
“Reinforcements are coming to the agency,” Oz said, speaking of doctors and clinicians he claims have been left behind or left out of CMS’s work; or even those who wouldn’t have previously wanted to work at CMS before.
The idea of bringing new people to CMS, where hundreds of employees were recently fired as part of a sweeping reduction in force (RIF) at HHS, was upsetting to those who were present at the meeting. “That was frankly insulting to the CMS staff,” says a source. “We have incredible people here.”
Update 4/8/24 6:20pm ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from a CMS spokesperson.
Leah Feiger, Steven Levy
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