AJMC® in the Press, May 29, 2026

The study “Mental Health Care Use After Leaving Medicare Advantage for Traditional Medicare,” published in the December 2025 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care^® (AJMC^®), evaluates Medicare beneficiaries with mental health diagnoses who transitioned from Medicare Advantage (MA) to traditional Medicare, finding that patients experienced a statistically significant increase in mental health visits after making the switch. The researchers concluded that this surge in health care utilization, along with a shift toward specialized providers like nurse practitioners and a decline in psychiatric emergency room visits, indicates potential care gaps in MA. In an analysis shared by The Globe and Mail, these findings are highlighted as evidence of a critical coverage gap in MA, cautioning retirees that although private MA plans offer attractive supplemental perks, their restrictive networks can lead to unmet clinical needs when patients require comprehensive mental health support.

The study “Insights Into Patient Portal Engagement Leveraging Observational Electronic Health Data,” published in the January 2026 issue of AJMC, leverages observational electronic health record data to analyze patient portal engagement, revealing significant disparities in how different demographic groups utilize online health platforms. The researchers found that although younger and higher-income individuals consistently adopted and interacted with portal features, older adults and underserved populations were less likely to use the portal, which suggested barriers to engagement. eMarketer references these findings to highlight how digital health literacy gaps act as a major barrier keeping older adults from fully utilizing online care tools and demonstrating that simply providing access to technology is insufficient without targeted support and intuitive design.

The study “Ambient AI Tool Adoption in US Hospitals and Associated Factors,” published in the January 2026 issue of AJMC, provides a national snapshot of ambient AI adoption in US hospitals, revealing that nearly 63% of systems utilizing Epic EHR have implemented or are deploying these background documentation tools. The researchers found that adoption is strongly associated with high clinician workloads, stronger hospital financial performance, and metropolitan locations, underscoring how administrative and structural resources heavily influence the technology's diffusion. IndiaTimes' ETHealthworld references the rapid scaling of ambient AI in the West to highlight "the trust equation" required for local clinical environments, contrasting the widespread deployment of American tools with the unique need for indigenous Indian platforms capable of handling rapid-fire patient loads and multi-language code-switching.