Health Care AI Requires a Lot of Expensive Humans

 Preparing cancer patients for difficult decisions is an oncologist’s job. They don’t always remember to do it, however. At the University of Pennsylvania Health System, doctors are nudged to talk about a patient’s treatment and end-of-life preferences by an artificially intelligent algorithm that predicts the chances of death.

But it’s far from being a set-it-and-forget-it tool. A routine tech checkup revealed the algorithm decayed during the Covid-19 pandemic, getting 7 percentage points worse at predicting who would die, according to a 2022 study.

There were likely real-life impacts. Ravi Parikh, an Emory University oncologist who was the study’s lead author, told KFF Health News the tool failed hundreds of times to prompt doctors to initiate that important discussion — possibly heading off unnecessary chemotherapy — with patients who needed it.

He believes several algorithms designed to enhance medical care weakened during the pandemic, not just the one at Penn Medicine. “Many institutions are not routinely monitoring the performance” of their products, Parikh said.

Algorithm glitches are one facet of a dilemma that computer scientists and doctors have long acknowledged but that is starting to puzzle hospital executives and researchers: Artificial intelligence systems require consistent monitoring and staffing to put in place and to keep them working well.

In essence: You need people, and more machines, to make sure the new tools don’t mess up.

“Everybody thinks that AI will help us with our access and capacity and improve care and so on,” said Nigam Shah, chief data scientist at Stanford Health Care. “All of that is nice and good, but if it increases the cost of care by 20%, is that viable?”

Government officials worry hospitals lack the resources to put these technologies through their paces. “I have looked far and wide,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at a recent agency panel on AI. “I do not believe there’s a single health system, in the United States, that’s capable of validating an AI algorithm that’s put into place in a clinical care system.”

AI is already widespread in health care. Algorithms are used to predict patients’ risk of death or deterioration, to suggest diagnoses or triage patients, to record and summarize visits to save doctors work, and to approve insurance claims.

If tech evangelists are right, the technology will become ubiquitous — and profitable. The investment firm Bessemer Venture Partners has identified some 20 health-focused AI startups on track to make $10 million in revenue each in a year. The FDA has approved nearly a thousand artificially intelligent products.

Evaluating whether these products work is challenging. Evaluating whether they continue to work — or have developed the software equivalent of a blown gasket or leaky engine — is even trickier.

Take a recent study at Yale Medicine evaluating six “early warning systems,” which alert clinicians when patients are likely to deteriorate rapidly. A supercomputer ran the data for several days, said Dana Edelson, a doctor at the University of Chicago and co-founder of a company that provided one algorithm for the study. The process was fruitful, showing huge differences in performance among the six products.

It’s not easy for hospitals and providers to select the best algorithms for their needs. The average doctor doesn’t have a supercomputer sitting around, and there is no Consumer Reports for AI.

“We have no standards,” said Jesse Ehrenfeld, immediate past president of the American Medical Association. “There is nothing I can point you to today that is a standard around how you evaluate, monitor, look at the performance of a model of an algorithm, AI-enabled or not, when it’s deployed.”

Perhaps the most common AI product in doctors’ offices is called ambient documentation, a tech-enabled assistant that listens to and summarizes patient visits. Last year, investors at Rock Health tracked $353 million flowing into these documentation companies. But, Ehrenfeld said, “There is no standard right now for comparing the output of these tools.”

And that’s a problem, when even small errors can be devastating. A team at Stanford University tried using large language models — the technology underlying popular AI tools like ChatGPT — to summarize patients’ medical history. They compared the results with what a physician would write.

“Even in the best case, the models had a 35% error rate,” said Stanford’s Shah. In medicine, “when you’re writing a summary and you forget one word, like ‘fever’ — I mean, that’s a problem, right?”

Sometimes the reasons algorithms fail are fairly logical. For example, changes to underlying data can erode their effectiveness, like when hospitals switch lab providers.

Sometimes, however, the pitfalls yawn open for no apparent reason.

Sandy Aronson, a tech executive at Mass General Brigham’s personalized medicine program in Boston, said that when his team tested one application meant to help genetic counselors locate relevant literature about DNA variants, the product suffered “nondeterminism” — that is, when asked the same question multiple times in a short period, it gave different results.

Aronson is excited about the potential for large language models to summarize knowledge for overburdened genetic counselors, but “the technology needs to improve.”

If metrics and standards are sparse and errors can crop up for strange reasons, what are institutions to do? Invest lots of resources. At Stanford, Shah said, it took eight to 10 months and 115 man-hours just to audit two models for fairness and reliability.

Experts interviewed by KFF Health News floated the idea of artificial intelligence monitoring artificial intelligence, with some (human) data whiz monitoring both. All acknowledged that would require organizations to spend even more money — a tough ask given the realities of hospital budgets and the limited supply of AI tech specialists.

“It’s great to have a vision where we’re melting icebergs in order to have a model monitoring their model,” Shah said. “But is that really what I wanted? How many more people are we going to need?”

https://www.medscape.com/s/viewarticle/health-care-ai-requires-lot-expensive-humans-2025a10000wt

Clinical Trials Underway for New Skin Aging Targets

 Targeted at fundamental processes that control skin aging, several therapies are currently being tested for the promise of a regulatory-granted antiaging indication, according to an update on a potentially huge area of dermatology practice.

Across a broad array of intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of skin aging, molecular targets tested in early clinical studies promise both efficacy and acceptable safety, according to Helen He, MD, assistant professor of dermatology and director of Lasers and Cosmetic Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City.

Of the targets, inflammation might be the single most important one. It has a recurring role in driving and then preserving skin cell senescence, He said.

Aging Skin Largely Inflammatory

Helen He, MD

“Chronic low-grade inflammation from decades of immune cell remodeling is now thought to be a major contributor,” He said in a presentation at the 27th Annual Winter Symposium — Advances in Medical and Surgical Dermatology (MSWS) 2024.

But once the process is initiated, senescent skin cells often acquire the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) that accelerates the inflammatory process by releasing cytokines, growth factors, proteases, and other immune modulators, according to He. This phenotype is implicated in cancer progression as well as wrinkle formation, so efforts to prevent the SASP transition are of great research interest.

Molecular studies of aging skin produce evidence of damaged DNA proteins, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, downregulated collagen, and other processes that together and independently drive the adverse changes most closely associated with an aging appearance, He added.

These drivers of aging are not equally important across skin types and individuals, said He, explaining why skin aging therapies are likely to be individualized.

Among the best evidence of these differences is the slower relative rate of skin aging among Black persons and Asians relative to White persons, a phenomenon He said has been documented in published studies. 

However, the variability in the aging process can also be seen within skin types. Part of the effort to isolate molecular targets in preventing skin aging has been based on studies comparing gene expression of women with a skin appearance that is younger than their chronological age, according to He. These studies have generated insight into which processes independently drive skin aging.

The skin aging process also appears to evolve over time, according to He, who cited a 2018 study that evaluated gene expression among women from ages 20 to 74 years. In this study, which took biopsies from both sun-exposed and nonexposed skin, the study linked damage early in life to high relative concentrations of free radicals. Later in life, signs of aging were more closely linked to alterations in energy metabolism, followed by the development of senescent skin cells, and finally changes in the epidermal barrier.

“At each decade of life, the data suggested different targets for antiaging interventions,” He said.

Senolytics, a term coined to describe therapies for eliminating senescent cells, have been actively and avidly pursued for the skin at many research institutions. Examples of early work include the identification of quercetin, fisetin, and dasatinib. None of these ultimately gained a regulatory indication for the treatment of aging skin, but quercetin has been granted Generally Recognized As Safe status by the US Food and Drug Administration, permitting it to be marketed over the counter.

Most recently, the mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor rapamycin has been shown to decrease markers of SASP and oxidative stress in the experimental setting. In a 2019 randomized clinical study with topical rapamycin, an improvement in skin appearance, including a reduction in wrinkles, was accompanied by a significant increase (P < .008) in collagen VII protein levels.

Methyl estradiol propanoate (MAP), a topical estrogen analog, has shown promise for restoring collagen and improving the appearance of skin in postmenopausal women. Broken down in the systemic circulation if absorbed, MAP targets the beta-estrogen receptor, which is expressed in the skin but not the reproductive tract, which might be relevant to the safety of this drug, He reported.

A topical formulation of the senotherapeutic peptide, OS-01, which is already included in some over-the-counter products, was recently tested in a double-blind trial. In this trial, OS-01 was associated with a reduction in wrinkles and an improvement in skin texture and appearance. The benefits are attributed to a reduction in water loss and strengthening of the skin barrier.

Providing just a sample of initiatives to prevent or reverse the aging process in the skin, He said that progress can be traced to a more detailed understanding of the underlying process of skin aging.

Highly Targeted Agents Anticipated

Based on the studies of skin aging being conducted at her institution and others, “more targeted approaches are coming,” He predicted. 

Abigail K. Langton, PhD, senior lecturer at the Centre for Dermatology Research, The University of Manchester, Manchester, England, was the senior author of a 2023 overview in which a near doubling of worldwide expenditures for modifying aging skin was predicted by 2030 and was asked to comment on this research.

Focusing on topical agents that included both prescription therapies and cosmeceuticals, Langton said the explosion in interest comes from the intersection of clinical advances and patient demand.

“Recent advances in skin aging science, combined with growing consumer awareness, are fueling the development of innovative therapies,” Langton said. She is most excited about the opportunities to slow the aging process in the skin with topical agents.

“Topical treatments remain the preferred choice for skin rejuvenation as they act directly on the skin to address signs of aging effectively, offering precision and safety with minimal risk,” Langton said.

Consistent with the summary by He, Langton believes that the coming choices for prevention and rejuvenation of aging skin will be both more effective and more precise.

Nazli Karimi, MD, PhD, a lecturer in the Department of Physiology, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey, an author of a more basic review of the physiology of aging skin, also published in 2023, further supported what she sees as important and fundamental progress in this area.

“The momentum in this field is undeniable,” said Karimi, who also was asked to comment. “Therapies that target cellular repair mechanisms, antioxidants, and senescence-modulating interventions hold great promise, not just for aesthetic improvements but for enhancing overall skin health and quality of life.”

Expressing optimism about the major advances she seems coming, Karimi added, “It’s inspiring to see how science is beginning to address not just the symptoms of aging skin but also its underlying processes, giving people the possibility of healthier skin as they age.”

He, Langton, and Karimi reported no potential conflicts of interest. 

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/clinical-trials-underway-new-skin-aging-targets-2025a10000xu

'Seasonal Flu Shot: First Defense Against an Eventful Avian Influenza Pandemic'

 In this prospective observational study, immune protection against H5N1 and H7N9 avian influenza virus (AIV) was almost absent prior to vaccination. However, seasonal influenza vaccines induced a seroprotective response against the H5N1 subtype in nearly 15% of younger individuals.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers conducted a prospective study to evaluate baseline levels of protection and the presence of neutralizing antibodies against the AIV subtypes H5N1 and H7N9 in different adult age groups.
• They included a total of 135 adults who were vaccinated with inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) during the 2021-2022 influenza season and categorized them into those born between:
  • 1925-1967 (group 1 [G1]; n = 41; mean age, 79.4 years); likely primed by A(H1N1) and A(H2N2) clade 1 viruses.
  • 1968-1977 (group 2 [G2]; n = 49; mean age, 48.4 years); likely primed by A(H3N2) subtype clade 2 virus.
  • 1978-1997 (group 3 [G3]; n = 40; mean age, 35.1 years), likely primed by A(H3N2) and A(H1N1) reemergent viruses.
• A serum sample was obtained at three timepoints from each vaccinated individual: Before vaccination with seasonal IIV, 1 month after vaccination, and 6 months after vaccination.
• Immunological assays such as hemagglutination inhibition and viral neutralization were performed to evaluate immune responses in different age groups at various timepoints of vaccination.
• Cross-protection triggered by IIV was studied using engineered recombinant viruses expressing hemagglutinin and neuraminidase antigenic proteins of the H5N1 and H7N9 strains tagged with reporter genes.

TAKEAWAY:

• Only 2.4% of individuals in G1 had protective antibodies against H5N1 before vaccination, while antibodies against H7N9 were absent across all vaccinated groups.
• One month after seasonal vaccination, H5N1 antibody response was greatest in G3 (15%), followed by G2 (12.2%), though responses to H7N9 were minimal. After 6 months, seroprotection against AIV remained 2% or lower in all cases.
• One month after seasonal vaccination, individuals in G2 and G3 exhibited increased levels of cross-protective neutralizing antibodies against H5N1 (31.4% and 39.5%, respectively) and H7N9 (35.3% and 51.2%, respectively).

IN PRACTICE:

"The results of our study indicate that probably the best vaccination strategy during the early stages of an AIV [avian influenza virus] pandemic will likely involve immunization first with seasonal IIV [inactivated influenza vaccine], followed, when it becomes available, with an AlV-specific vaccine or with specific newly designed H5N1 vaccines. This would lead to a more robust seroprotection compared with the single administration of the monovalent H5N1 vaccine," the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Iván Sanz-Muñoz, National Influenza Centre, Hospital Clinico Universitario de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain. It was published online on December 31, 2024, in mBio.

LIMITATIONS:

The study used traditional measures of protection to evaluate neutralization and failed to observe the seasonal vaccine effect in children.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, and others. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/seasonal-flu-shot-first-defense-against-eventful-avian-2025a10000ym

Pentagon watchdog finds Austin hospitalization scandal increased security risks

 Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization scandal last year increased national security risks and should have been handled better, according to a new report from the Pentagon’s watchdog.

The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Defense (OIG), in its 188-page report, criticized Austin’s team for failing to properly notify key officials and transfer the authorities of his job. The OIG also knocked Austin and his staff for how they handled the hospitalization for surgeries or complications related to prostate cancer in December 2023 and early 2024.

Last January, Austin’s hospitalization and failure to properly notify the White House and Congress of the treatment sparked controversy and led to a congressional hearing and a Biden administration review of Cabinet secretary notifications to the president.

Inspector General Robert Storch said the “ability for the DoD and the government to operate seamlessly and the continuity of leadership under any and all circumstances are fundamental to our national security.”

“Although we found no adverse consequences to DoD operations arising from how the hospitalizations we reviewed were handled, the risks to our national defense, including the command and control of the DoD’s critical national security operations, were increased unnecessarily,” Storch said in a statement.

“While the DoD has taken some important steps to address these concerns, additional improvements are required to ensure the DoD’s readiness, transparency, and the fulfillment of its mission,” he continued. “These improvements are not just an administrative necessity; they are an operational and national security imperative.”

The Pentagon disputed that the report had found any major errors in how the hospitalization was handled.

A senior defense official told reporters Austin “made a mistake, he apologized and he committed to improving transparency and processes moving forward, which the department has already done over the past year to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

“There was no scandal, there was no cover up, and in fact, the report found that at no time was the secretary incapacitated while carrying out his duties,” the official said. “The report also found that at no time was there a break in command and control, and at no time were there any gaps in authorities or operational impacts.

They added that “at every moment, either the secretary of Defense or the deputy secretary of Defense was fully prepared to support the president as commander in chief and had access to the necessary unclassified and classified communication systems.”

The defense official, however, acknowledged a “shortfall” in the notification process and said Austin should have notified President Biden of his cancer diagnosis sooner. Biden did not know about the Defense secretary’s early January hospitalization until three days later and the cancer diagnosis until after the procedure.

The OIG report suggested 20 recommendations for the Pentagon to implement, many of which the defense official said they were already working on. The recommendations include widening those involved in the decision-making process and enhancing the information flow in the department and to other stakeholders.

The watchdog added that some of the directives the Pentagon has already implemented are insufficient and do not account for situations like a hospitalization or how medical personnel and medications could be involved in transfer authorities.

The Pentagon conducted its own 30-day review last year that largely found no fault among the staff for the hospitalization scandal. Austin also held a press conference where he apologized for not being transparent and attributed it to his need for privacy.

Austin was first hospitalized in December 2023 for a surgery related to the cancer, and he had to transfer his authorities to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks for 36 hours.

He was then hospitalized again on Jan. 1, 2024, from pain related to the surgery, and Austin transferred his authorities to Hicks from the afternoon of Jan. 2-5, but failed to communicate to her that she was acting secretary of defense, according to the OIG report.

Austin remained in the hospital until Jan. 15 but maintained his authorities. The report said Austin should have considered transferring his authorities on Jan. 6 and Jan. 8, during two medical procedures in which he was moderately sedated.

The Defense chief also failed to transfer his authorities until after he was hospitalized in another medical procedure to address severe pain on Feb. 11, according to the OIG, which said he should have transferred them hours earlier.

And when an ambulance took Austin to the hospital on Jan. 1, 2024, the secretary directed his personal staff to ensure the ambulance did not use lights and sirens and that they not notify anyone about the situation, according to the OIG.

The December and early January notifications were also not made in a timely manner to the comptroller general, Congress or White House, OIG said.

For the report, the watchdog looked through reams of communications and messages and interviewed 44 witnesses.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5086785-lloyd-austin-pentagon-watchdog-hospitalization-scandal/

Biden is using his remaining time in office to give the country what it rejected

 You may have heard that President Biden and his team have been focused during their last days in office on building his “legacy.” 

That word used to mean using the last days in office to cement an administration’s successes, while maybe adding a bow on top with a few small extras that people like. Today, it is code for having the left inflict upon us all of the really radical stuff that voters just rejected, now that the election is over and there can’t be any accountability.   

That might mean taking huge swaths of land out of potential energy production, allowing federal workers to stay home for the next five years or pardoning Hunter Biden. In each one, one has to wonder how any of that actually contributes to any sort of “legacy” that Biden would want.

But I suppose it is all consistent with the current mentality of the left — that people are just too stupid to vote for what is good for them, and therefore progressives will give it to them anyway.

Of course, it isn’t just the outgoing president looking to leave its mark on the nation before giving up the levers of power. Never to be left behind when it comes to reminding people what irresponsible progressive legacy-building looks like, Rohit Chopra has been burning the midnight oil making sure that people get exactly the sort of government they just voted against.

Although he will likely be one of the first people to receive his walking papers next Monday afternoon, Chopra, through his role as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and his seat on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, has proposed, issued or finalized at least five new rulemakings since the election. He has filed more lawsuits than that. 

He continues to hound private equity over its passive ownership — emphasis on passive — of FDIC-insured banks.

His justification  —  for not only proposing new regulation, but for also breaking all sort of rules regarding pre-determining the outcome of the rulemaking — is that large asset managers were a “natural oligopoly.”

He cites no evidence of injury to consumers — maybe he forgot what the “C” stands for in “CFPB.” In fact, consumers seem to like passive asset managers. Chopra certainly does, at least when it comes to investing his own money.

It’s hard to imagine that sticking it to questionable “natural oligopolists” passively invested in FDIC-insured banks is the sort of “legacy” Biden dreamed of back in the 1980s when he was plagiarizing speeches during his first presidential campaign. It’s even harder to imagine working class folks in Pittsburgh or Milwaukee reading about Chopra’s actions today and clamoring for a redo on the election so that they can vote for these folks.

The bottom line is that none of this has anything to do with legacy. It has to do with power. Leftists hate oil (hence the ban) and love federal workers, who overwhelmingly vote Democrat (hence the work rules). They especially hate capitalism, banks and rich people — at least the ones who don’t give to liberal causes. 

Private equity investing in banks checks all of those boxes.   

Might makes right, and for one more week, progressives have the power to really stick it to people they dislike. That is the real legacy here.

Six years ago, when I was running the CFPB, a group of lawyers led by Brian Johnson and Eric Blankenstein came up with a way — consistent with the statutory law — for a president to effectively shutter the Bureau. For this, Blankenstein was subjected to a Stalinesque character assassination by the left that foreshadowed what many Trump team members would face after leaving office.

Turnabout, as they say, is fair play. Trump should look to put people like those two back at the Bureau.

In fact, we had people throughout the government who were truly committed to fixing the place. Those folks are still out there. Many are getting ready to go back in the administration.

Unlike Biden, who is using his last hours in office to give the country what people expressly rejected in November, Trump is in a position — not just at the CFPB, but everywhere across the executive branch — to give people what they actually voted for: undoing everything the progressive left has done to this country.

Now that would be a legacy to be proud of.

Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, is a contributor to NewsNation. He served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump.

https://thehill.com/opinion/5085726-biden-legacy-bureaucracy/

AGs from 13 states ask Walmart to reconsider DEI

Walmart is one of the latest corporations pulling back from its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, phasing out many of its programs and removing the words “diversity” and “DEI” from documents.

However, the move has raised concerns among a group of state attorneys general who are calling on Walmart to reconsider the changes.

The top prosecutors from 13 states signed the letter addressed to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon. They want to know why Walmart is rolling back its diversity policies and how the company is planning to protect civil rights in the workplace.

The company confirmed the changes back in November, saying it would no longer hold diversity trainings, nor give priority to diverse suppliers, and will be removing the words “diversity” and “DEI” from its vernacular altogether.

Instead, the company has started to use the word “belonging” in communication. It also stopped collecting demographic data on potential suppliers.

In response to the moves, 13 Democratic attorneys general say in part, “Threats to boycott, sue or otherwise negatively impact Walmart’s bottom line may well have contributed to your decision to walk away from your commitments to DEI. But we are concerned that Walmart failed to consider the other side — the customers and employees that will be alienated by this departure.”

NewsNation spoke with Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul about why he wanted to send the letter.

“There could be economic pressure from the other side of things which is, quite frankly, the majority of the United States,” he said. “Women and minorities buy as well, have purchasing power as well.”

“On the heels of George Floyd’s murder, Walmart had stepped forth and said that we’re making a commitment to the very thing that they’re now abandoning,” he added. “So I question how genuine that commitment was.”

NewsNation reached out to Walmart about the letter. The company told us it remains “committed to creating a culture where everyone can be successful.”

Walmart isn’t the only company making moves to step back from DEI. Other major corporations like McDonald’s, Meta, Ford, Molson Coors and several others are dropping DEI initiatives as well.

Many of the changes came following the Supreme Court ruling last summer eliminating affirmative action in schools, though that ruling does not have any implications for private businesses.

Workers themselves are divided on the issue.

Pew Research data from November found 21 percent of workers think DEI is a bad idea, up 5 percentage points from the year prior.

“I understand people have certainly suffered in recent years just to make ends meet, getting paycheck to paycheck, some of them have their employment and some have taken to trying to convince such people that it is because somebody else is taking your opportunity,” Raoul said.

“Frankly, the numbers don’t reflect that. The numbers do not reflect that DEI programs or any other programs are taking away these opportunities in any significant number from others,” he added.

Meanwhile, 52 percent of people said think DEI at work is a good thing, a number that is down 4 percentage points from a year ago.

However, political and public pressure has still encouraged businesses to pull back from DEI and President-elect Trump is openly opposed to such policies.

https://thehill.com/business/5084814-13-attorneys-general-walmart-dei-rollback/

'California Democrat Chu hits FEMA over assistance claim denials'

 Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), whose district has been damaged by the Eaton Fire, criticized FEMA for reportedly rejecting disaster assistance claims because of a lack of insurance information.

“I am hearing about frustrations with FEMA because they have done what we asked, which is to sign up on the disasterassistance.gov site, and then some of them have gotten denied approvals or non-approvals,” Chu said about her constituents in an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill” on Tuesday.

In the interview, Chu sought to reassure her constituents that FEMA does, in fact, have the resources to help them, and she encouraged residents to continue trying to get the help they need.

“What we want to say to them is that FEMA does have the resources to help them and that sometimes they may not have all the insurance information, and so they’ll get that message, but to keep on going,” Chu said.

Chu encouraged constituents to call FEMA directly if their claims get denied or to go to the newly opened disaster resource center at Pasadena City College to “ask what is going on with their application.”

Constituents can also go to the center to get their documents, she added, “because so many people just ran out of the house with only their clothes and lost all their documents, which were then all burned up.”

Asked why FEMA is rejecting claims over a lack of information, Chu said she thinks “there’s some kind of conclusion that they reached that it is better to proactively say not approved, rather than to say pending.”

“I am actually urging them to change it,” Chu said, noting that she discussed the issue with the FEMA administrator Monday night.

“I think they should change it because, you know, there’s nothing worse, after your life has been devastated, you’re not at your home, you’re trying to recover, and then you get a non-approval message in error,” Chu said. “That’s not right.”

A FEMA spokesperson told The Hill that FEMA sends a letter to everyone who applies for assistance but that “FEMA may need your insurance determination to be finalized in order to continue processing your FEMA application to make sure you are not receiving funding for the same damage twice.”

“By law, FEMA cannot pay for costs related to the wildfires that your insurance already covers,” the spokesperson said, adding that “FEMA may be able to provide some initial funds while you wait for your insurance payout.”

The spokesperson said those who have not received their settlements within 30 days of filing their insurance claims should contact the FEMA helpline at 1-800-621-3362.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5086146-feema-denies-claims-insurance-information/