Healthcare’s Agent Bytecode: X12 as the Harness for AI Agents — Vasant Kearney, Onlay

Vasant Kearney from Onlay argues that when AI agents handle healthcare insurance claims, they should use X12—the insurance communication standard—as a framework rather than just a file format.

The challenge is that an insurer's phone system, web portal, and X12 data are often built by different teams and can contradict or malfunction together. By using X12 as a structural framework, AI agents can normalize all interactions—phone calls, portal interactions, insurance checks—into the same underlying transaction. He emphasizes two practical requirements: memory must be stored in a database for logical separation, and a "better" AI model cannot simply be swapped in, because better performance on a test does not mean better performance within a system built around a different model.

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