When Humans Become the Premium Service in Healthcare
In a room full of healthcare innovators, surrounded by talk of AI diagnosis and predictive analytics, the most disruptive idea came in six simple words: "People will pay me for my time."
The response emerged during an interactive moment at the Health Innovation School, where I had just painted a comprehensive picture of emerging business models, cutting-edge technologies, and unexpected industries entering healthcare. When I asked the audience how their professions might look in five years, this healthcare professional's answer created an awkward silence, followed by the profound realisation that they had articulated something we hadn't quite grasped yet.
That simple statement has been haunting me ever since, because it reveals a fundamental shift we're not discussing enough: the transformation of human expertise from technical service provider to premium experience curator.
The great healthcare recalibration
Today's healthcare professionals spend their time on a mixture of data analysis, pattern recognition, treatment recommendations, and human interaction. But AI is rapidly claiming the technical territory. Sophisticated algorithms already analyse medical imaging with superhuman accuracy, predict health risks from wearable data, and provide personalised treatment recommendations based on vast datasets.
Yet something curious happens in industries where automation achieves technical superiority: human expertise doesn't disappear; it transforms into a luxury good. Consider how wine apps can identify the perfect bottle based on your preferences and budget, yet sommeliers command premium fees for curating experiences and crafting narratives around their recommendations. Personal shoppers thrive despite Amazon's algorithmic efficiency because they offer something beyond optimisation — they provide understanding, context, and emotional intelligence.
Healthcare appears poised for a similar evolution, but the stakes are infinitely higher.
The cascade of uncomfortable questions
This transformation raises profound questions about the future value proposition of human healthcare professionals. In a world where AI chatbots, combined with wearables and lab results, provide personalised health advice and optimisation, what exactly happens during that paid human time?
Will healthcare professionals become "AI whisperers," helping patients navigate contradictory recommendations from multiple algorithms? How do you price empathy, reassurance, and the irreplaceable human touch? What happens when AI delivers clinically superior advice, but patients still crave human connection and validation?
Perhaps most intriguingly: will we see the emergence of healthcare "concierges" who specialise in curating and prioritising AI-generated insights, transforming overwhelming data streams into meaningful narratives? And crucially, will insurance systems evolve to cover "human interpretation" as a separate service category, or will this become an out-of-pocket luxury for those who can afford it?
The sherpa economy of healthcare
The answer lies in reimagining healthcare professionals as sherpa guides rather than technical experts. AI provides the map, weather forecast, and route optimisation, but humans guide patients through the treacherous emotional terrain of health decisions. They help navigate not just the clinical landscape, but the psychological, social, and existential dimensions of wellness that no algorithm can fully comprehend.
This human premium service model isn't about replacing clinical expertise; it's about elevating it. Healthcare professionals who embrace this shift will command premium rates not despite AI's capabilities, but because of them. They'll become the translators between algorithmic precision and human understanding, the curators who transform data into wisdom.
Consider a future where a consultation costs €150 for thirty minutes, not because the professional diagnosed your condition (the AI did that), but because they helped you understand what living with that diagnosis means for your relationships, career, and life goals. They guided you through treatment trade-offs that algorithms calculate but humans must ultimately choose between.
Your first step towards the human premium
Organisations ready to embrace this transformation should begin with "The Time Audit Challenge." Conduct a detailed analysis of how your healthcare professionals currently spend their time, categorising activities into three buckets:
- Automatable: Tasks AI can handle better and faster than humans.
- Augmentable: Tasks where AI can support but humans should lead the process.
- Irreplaceable: Uniquely human activities that will become premium services.
This audit reveals which human capabilities to preserve, develop, and ultimately monetise in an AI-first healthcare world. It's your roadmap to ensuring that when someone says "People will pay me for my time," you know exactly what extraordinary value that time will deliver.
The future belongs to healthcare professionals who recognise that their greatest competitive advantage isn't competing with AI — it's becoming irreplaceably human in ways that matter most when health, hope, and humanity intersect.
The question isn't whether AI will transform healthcare — it's whether you'll position human expertise as the premium service it's destined to become.