logo
Treatment.com AI and Rocket Doctor Applaud US Health Secretary RFK Jr.'s Call for Greater Investment in Telehealth and AI-Driven Diagnostic Tools

Treatment.com AI and Rocket Doctor Applaud US Health Secretary RFK Jr.'s Call for Greater Investment in Telehealth and AI-Driven Diagnostic Tools

Business Upturn15-05-2025

RFK Jr. calls for a 'revolution' in telehealth and AI to reduce ER visits and improve at-home care.
Treatment.com AI and Rocket Doctor applaud the remarks, citing strong alignment with their mission.
Rocket Doctor is currently empowering physicians to run their own practices in New York and California, serving Medicaid and Medicare patients in underserved communities.
‏ VANCOUVER, BC, May 15, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Treatment.com AI Inc. (CSE: TRUE, OTC: TREIF, Frankfurt: 939) ('Treatment') and Rocket Doctor, its wholly owned online care platform, applaud United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for his remarks during the House Appropriations Committee Budget Hearing yesterday, where he championed the potential role of telehealth and artificial intelligence in improving access to care.‏
‏'We are going to dramatically revolutionize the availability of telehealth and AI so that people can avoid emergency rooms by getting treated at home,' said Secretary Kennedy Jr. 'I looked at a technology yesterday that can accurately diagnose strep throat using your telephone camera with one picture of the inside of your throat…you can prevent somebody from having to go to the emergency room, and you can get them a prescription on site.' (see: ‏ ‏Budget Hearing – U.S. Department of Health and Human Services‏ ‏ – 2:12:25)‏
‏These comments echo Treatment and Rocket Doctor's mission, and whose virtual care technologies are already making this future a reality. Across New York and California, Rocket Doctor's platform enables physicians to start their own practices and remotely diagnose and treat Medicare and Medicaid patients using advanced AI tools and Bluetooth-enabled medical devices. This service is providing patients in cities and rural communities with accurate, in-home assessments while reducing the need for emergency care visits.‏
‏'Virtual care is the great equalizer,' said Dr. William Cherniak, CEO and Founder of Rocket Doctor. 'Whether it's using a smartphone otoscope to examine an ear infection or a bluetooth connected stethoscope to assess lungs, we're equipping doctors and patients with the tools to make timely, accurate decisions from anywhere and anytime. Secretary Kennedy's remarks validate what we've been building: a healthcare model that is accessible for all people, where care comes to you.'‏
‏He added 'As a practicing ER doctor I have seen first hand the challenges of patients using much more costly emergency services, when they could have safely been managed outside the four walls of the hospital. Our system is designed to address this problem, so far helping over 4,000 patients avoid emergency care at a hospital (see ‏ ‏https://gbgh.on.ca/gbgh-exploring-innovative-ways-to-bring-appropriate-care-to-the-community-with-rocket-doctor/‏ ‏ ) and subsequently we won Stanford's Emergency Medicine pitch contest for the innovative approach.' To further underscore its innovation, the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) recently announced Rocket Doctor as Clinical Innovator of the Year at its Innovators Challenge.‏
‏Treatment further enhances this model through its proprietary Global Library of Medicine (GLM), a comprehensive, physician-developed AI engine that supports diagnosis and care planning. The GLM can be consumed in several ways, as examples powering health chatbots and voice agents, enabling intelligent patient onboarding and triage before any provider engagement.‏
‏'AI is offering the possibility to significantly impact healthcare for the 3 Ps: the Patient, the Provider, and the Payer,' said Dr. Essam Hamza, CEO of Treatment.com AI. 'It increases accuracy, improves workflow efficiency, and reduces unnecessary costs. What Secretary Kennedy described isn't hypothetical, it's happening now and we're proud to be at the forefront.'‏
‏Together, Treatment and Rocket Doctor are demonstrating what's possible when technology, clinical expertise, and health system innovation align, helping patients avoid ER visits, shortening diagnostic timelines, and expanding access to high-quality care.‏
‏About Treatment.com AI Inc.‏
‏Treatment.com AI is a company utilizing AI (artificial intelligence) and best clinical practices to positively improve the healthcare sector and impact current inefficiencies and challenges. With the input of hundreds of healthcare professionals globally, Treatment.com AI has built a comprehensive, personalized healthcare AI engine — the Global Library of Medicine (GLM). With more than 10,000 expert medical reviews, the GLM delivers tested clinical information and support to all healthcare professionals as well as providing recommended tests (physical and lab), imaging and billing codes. The GLM helps healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses or pharmacists) reduce their administrative burden; creates more time for needed face-to-face patient appointments; and enables greater consistency in quality of patient support. Treatment.com AI's GLM platform, through supporting healthcare professionals, allows for the inclusion of disenfranchised communities.‏
‏Learn more at‏‏ ‏ ‏www.treatment.com‏ ‏ or contact‏ ‏ [email protected]‏‏.‏
‏About Rocket Doctor Inc.‏
‏Rocket Doctor is a technology-driven digital health platform and marketplace that is breaking down obstacles that limit access to quality, comprehensive and cost-effective healthcare. Our proprietary software equips doctors with the tools to run successful practices in virtual and hybridized in-person/virtual models of care, enabling them to provide tailored care to patients in remote communities, particularly those in rural and Northern communities across Canada and on Medicaid in the United States. Leveraging large language models, AI/ML and wireless medical devices, Rocket Doctor is bridging the healthcare divide, connecting patients to equitable and accessible virtual healthcare services regardless of age, location, or financial status. This includes patients with potentially stigmatizing conditions such as substance use, mental health and otherwise.‏
‏To learn more about Rocket Doctor's platform and services, visit ‏ ‏www.rocketdoctor.ca‏ ‏ (Canada) or‏ ‏ www.rocketdoctor.io‏ ‏ (U.S.), or contact ‏ ‏ [email protected] ‏ ‏.‏
‏FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CONTACT:‏
‎‏Dr. Essam Hamza, CEO‏
‎‏Email: [email protected]‏
‎‏Media inquiries: [email protected]‏
‎‏Call: +1 (612) 788-8900 / Toll-Free USA/Canada: +1 (888) 788-8955‏
‏Cautionary Statement‏
‏This news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on Treatment.com AI's expectations, estimates and projections regarding its business and the economic environment in which it operates, including with respect to the implementation of its shareholder communications initiative and the timing thereof. Although Treatment.com AI believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to control or predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, and readers should not place undue reliance on such statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and Treatment.com AI undertakes no obligation to update them publicly to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances unless otherwise required to do so by law.‏
‏The Canadian Securities Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.‏
Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with GlobeNewswire. Business Upturn takes no editorial responsibility for the same.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

GOP's health care plan: We're all going to die, so whatever
GOP's health care plan: We're all going to die, so whatever

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

GOP's health care plan: We're all going to die, so whatever

If death and taxes are the only certainties, Joni Ernst is here to cut one and fast-track the other. 'We all are going to die," she said. You might think that's a line from a nihilistic French play. Or something a teenage goth said in Hot Topic. Or an epiphany from your stoner college roommate after he watched Interstellar at 3 a.m. But that was actually the Iowa Senator's God-honest response to concerns that slashing Medicaid to achieve President Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' would lead to more preventable deaths. The full exchange at a May 30 town hall included one audience member shouting at the stage, 'People will die!' And Ernst responding, 'People are not — well, we all are going to die, so for heaven's sake.' That's not a health care policy — that's a horoscope for the terminally screwed. As you can imagine, the internet didn't love it, because losing your health should not trigger the equivalent of a shrug emoji from someone elected to serve the public good. But rather than walking it back, Ernst leaned in, filming a mock apology in a graveyard because nothing says, 'I care about your future,' like filming next to people who don't have one. Opinion: Nurses are drowning while Braun ignores Indiana's health care crisis Ernst's comments aren't just philosophical musings. She's justifying policy choices that cause real harm. If passed, this bill would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, remove health coverage for up to 7.6 million Americans. That's not just 'we all die someday' territory. That's 'some people will die soon and needlessly.' What makes this even more galling is that the people pushing these cuts have access to high-quality, taxpayer-subsidized healthcare. Congress gets the AAA, platinum, concierge-level government plan. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are told to try their luck with essential oils or YouTube acupuncture tutorials. Honestly, it felt more like performance art than policy: 'Sorry about your grandma getting kicked out of her assisted living facility. Please enjoy this scenic view of her future! LOL!' We're not asking you to defeat death, senator. Death is both inevitable and bipartisan. But there is a broad chasm between dying peacefully at 85 and dying in your 40's because your Medicaid plan disappeared and your GoFundMe didn't meet its goal. Fundamentally, governing is about priorities. A budget is a moral document. When a lawmaker tells you 'we're all going to die' in response to a policy choice, they're telling you 'I've made peace with your suffering as collateral damage.' And if a U.S. Senator can stand in a cemetery and joke about it, you have to wonder — who do our federal legislators think those graves are for? Opinion: Indiana DCS cut foster care in half — and now claims children are safer This isn't just about one comment or one bill. It's about a mindset that treats healthcare as a luxury rather than a right. If death is inevitable, then access to healthcare you can afford is what helps determine how long you have, how comfortably you live, and whether you get to watch your kids grow up. Healthcare isn't about escaping death. It's about dignity and quality of life while we are here. Ernst got one thing right: death will come for us all. But leadership, real leadership, is about helping people live as long and as well as they can before that day comes. You want to make jokes, Senator? Fine. But if your punchline is 'You're all going to die anyway,' don't be surprised when your constituents realize the joke's on them. Kristin Brey is the "My Take" columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Joni Ernst films graveyard video after telling sick people "we all die" | Opinion

We Saw Medicaid Work Requirements Up Close. You Don't Want This Chaos.
We Saw Medicaid Work Requirements Up Close. You Don't Want This Chaos.

New York Times

time2 hours ago

  • New York Times

We Saw Medicaid Work Requirements Up Close. You Don't Want This Chaos.

Many of the Republicans pushing for Medicaid work requirements — permanent program cuts that will strip up to 14 million people of their health care coverage — likely have no idea what it takes to comply with them. We do. As legal aid lawyers, we were on the front lines helping low-income people in Arkansas keep their health care coverage when the state rolled out work requirements in 2018. The policy caused chaos for everyone involved: people receiving Medicaid, hospitals and health clinics, pharmacies, social services organizations and state agency caseworkers. No officials serious about governing should willingly create such problems for their own state. Over 18,160 people in Arkansas lost coverage in only five months before courts halted the policy. Many were our clients. Adrian McGonigal had chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, for which he received treatment. At the time he held a job working 30 to 40 hours a week at a poultry plant, which paid more than any other job he'd had before and should have satisfied the requirement. But the state's system for automatically identifying working people was faulty, and Mr. McGonigal struggled to navigate the complex monthly reporting system on his own. Unable to report his work, he lost Medicaid, couldn't afford his C.O.P.D. medications, wound up in the hospital emergency room several times, lost his job and never fully recovered. For the next several years he struggled in various minimum-wage jobs, earning much less than he had at the poultry plant. Sadly, he died in November. We saw many working people face similar challenges. Our clients ran the gamut of low-wage work: fast food workers, restaurant dishwashers and servers, construction workers, janitors, landscapers, motel cleaners, gas station clerks and nursing assistants. Many had disabilities, and their ability to continue working depended on getting treatment to manage chronic pain, asthma, injuries, cancer and mental health conditions. Some lost coverage simply because they couldn't navigate the policy's complicated requirements and labyrinthine reporting process. Others lost insurance because of the instability of low-wage work: Bosses cut their hours or laid them off without warning, limited public transit narrowed their options or they lived in struggling rural areas where jobs were hard to come by. When the state cut them off, their health worsened and many lost jobs, as well as the ability to work new ones. Nobody on Medicaid was free from the tumult. Despite outreach from the state, there was widespread panic, as people didn't know if they had the type of Medicaid that the new requirements applied to. People received confusing 10-page letters from the state Medicaid office, which often contradicted other coverage letters people received around the same time. The website to report compliance shut down every night at 9 p.m., and when it was running, it was so complex that we put together video tutorials to help people navigate it successfully. (Many still couldn't.) People spent hours on the phone or at agency offices trying to figure out their status or fix errors, often needing a lawyer's help. In some cases, they had to pester their employers for extra proof of wages or statements that met the state's requirements. All told, 18,164 people were terminated because of noncompliance with the work requirements, and thousands more people lost coverage because of related paperwork burdens. What's more, these penalties operated as a tax on key economic sectors. Hospitals and health clinics, many already barely surviving in rural areas, assumed additional costs to untangle billing nightmares, absorb more uncompensated care and help confused patients document their eligibility for coverage. Local nonprofits, including services for the homeless, domestic violence shelters, food banks, soup kitchens and senior centers, spent their scarce resources trying to help people comply. Pharmacists dealt with the desperation of people learning for the first time that they had lost coverage and would have to pay out of pocket for their prescriptions. The state Medicaid agency also bent under the weight. Agency management sloughed off the thankless and time-consuming tasks of cleaning up endless system errors, figuring out workarounds and calming frantic people to overburdened caseworkers. At one point, the state's call centers were so overwhelmed that the agency expanded its hours of operation, which still didn't prevent lengthy wait times. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Can Tackling Addictions Reduce Medicaid Costs?
Can Tackling Addictions Reduce Medicaid Costs?

Newsweek

time5 hours ago

  • Newsweek

Can Tackling Addictions Reduce Medicaid Costs?

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Discussions around Medicaid costs have become more heated than ever in recent months as President Donald Trump's administration tries to push its budget bill through the legislative ranks. House Republicans have instructed the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to slash $880 billion in spending over the next decade, with Medicaid making up 93 percent of the committee's budget. As a result, the amount of money the federal Medicaid program needs to provide health care services for more than 70 million Americans has been under dispute, with some arguing there is significant waste and misuse of money in the system, while others have warned cuts would leave millions of vulnerable people without access to health care. While lawmakers continue debating the divisive legislation, experts have discussed with Newsweek whether there could be another way of reducing Medicaid costs—tackling substance use disorders. Medicaid enrollees with substance use disorders require significantly higher health costs than those without—around $1,200 per month on average compared to $550, according to KFF. Around 7.2 percent of Medicaid recipients age 12 to 64 have a diagnosed substance use disorder, and treatment is key to addressing overdoses, deaths and other health or social complications, KFF reported. So could tackling substance use disorders in turn reduce costs for the Medicaid program? Here's what experts told Newsweek. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva Why Are Medicaid Costs Higher for Those With Substance Use Disorders? The reason Medicaid enrollees with substance use disorders have higher health costs is because they often also have additional health complications, Dr. Joshua Lynch, professor of emergency and addiction medicine at the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, New York, told Newsweek. This could be physical health conditions, such as hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes, or mental health disorders, "which can lead to more complex health care needs," he added. Those with substance use disorders also may "experience more fragmented care and more challenging access to high quality, lower cost care and preventative services," Lynch said. They may also struggle to work, or stay in work, and this may "contribute to increased reliance on higher-cost healthcare services," he added. Many Americans with substance use disorders also go undiagnosed, Brendan Saloner, professor of health policy and management at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Maryland, told Newsweek. He added that those with substance addiction can have a lot of problems, such as the risk of overdose, or contracting blood-borne diseases like HIV or hepatitis C, as well as other issues, so "it's much better to get people into care proactively then to wait for their problems to become a crisis." The higher costs for those with substance use disorders, therefore, could "reflect the devastating physical consequences of substance use itself," Heidi Allen, professor of social work at the Columbia University School of Social Work, New York, told Newsweek, pointing to overdoses, increased vulnerability for chronic illness and exposure to infectious diseases. It's also not just about health complications, John Kelly, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital, told Newsweek. "The nature of these disorders means also that, on average, in the Medicaid population, individuals suffering from substance use disorder tend to have more social instability in terms of secure housing, employment, and criminal justice complications. These all contribute to increased costs," he said. Could Tackling Substance Use Disorders Reduce Medicaid Costs? While tackling substance use disorders may not slash Medicaid costs in the short term, as it would require investment in prevention and treatment, it could have positive economic impacts in the long run. "Prioritizing substance use treatment for enrollees might not reduce Medicaid costs in the short term, since we would expect more Medicaid enrollees to engage with treatment, which itself costs money," Allen said. However, she added that "it could certainly improve the health of enrollees, which might result in Medicaid savings down the road." If patients also have access to high-quality treatment and are able to manage their condition, "they have a lower reliance on high-cost health care such as emergency visits and inpatient hospitalizations," Lynch said. He added that other comorbidities also become more manageable, while housing stability and employment turn more achievable. "All of these will lead to a decrease in overall Medicaid spending," he said. Kelly also said he thought that tackling substance use disorders could reduce costs for Medicaid, adding that "focus on earlier intervention, and better implementation of care coordination will result in reduced use of more expensive acute medical care services, as well as prevention of the contraction of more chronic disease such as alcohol-associated liver diseases, HIV and hepatitis infections." "I am very confident that it would help to prevent some long-term costs to the program and would have a huge impact on other non-health needs like employment and reduced incarceration," Saloner said. But he added that whether it fully pays for itself, or saves money, is a more difficult question to answer. "We have some older studies showing that substance use care can offset lots of costs to society, but purely from the perspective of the Medicaid budget it's hard to say. The quality of life gains make it very cost-effective, whether or not it's cost saving," he said. Carrie Fry, professor in the department of health policy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Tennessee, told Newsweek: "Research shows that addressing substance use disorder with effective, evidence-based treatments reduces Medicaid costs." In order to cut Medicaid costs, Fry said, making it easier for people with substance use disorders "to start and remain on effective treatment" would be an important step in the process. "For opioid use disorder, this means expanding availability of medications for opioid use disorder including methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone," she said. She added that only about half of Medicaid enrollees with an opioid use disorder receive evidence-based treatment in a given year. "So, treatment is an important first step to addressing the burden of substance use disorders in Medicaid and can reduce or prevent additional downstream costs," Fry said. She added that reducing the prevalence of substance use disorder via prevention will "require a more comprehensive approach to addressing broader social conditions that lead to increased risk of developing a substance use disorder."

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store