The Unsung Heroes of Healthcare Are About to Get Their Time Back

By Sami Malik

There are roughly 20 million people working in healthcare in the United States. When we talk about healthcare, the spotlight naturally falls on doctors and nurses. And rightfully so. They are the ones in the room when it matters most, making the calls that save lives.

But behind every provider is an army of people you rarely hear about. Care coordinators. Medical assistants. Referral specialists. Schedulers. These are the folks who spend their days buried in faxes, chasing prior authorizations, playing phone tag with insurance companies, and manually entering data into systems that were never designed to talk to each other.

They are the backbone of American healthcare. And they are exhausted.

I have spent the last decade building healthcare companies. I scaled a virtual care company to 500 providers across all 50 states before selling to private equity. I helped grow an obesity care brand to $150 million across multiple markets. Through all of it, I saw the same pattern. The clinical side gets the investment, the technology, the attention. The operational side gets spreadsheets and workarounds.

That is starting to change. And I believe 2026 will be the year we finally see AI deliver on its promise for the people who need it most.

The conversation around AI in healthcare tends to focus on diagnostics, imaging, drug discovery. Those are important. But the immediate, tangible impact is happening in the back office. AI can now read a faxed referral, extract the patient information, check insurance eligibility, and reach out to schedule an appointment. All within minutes. Work that used to take a coordinator 45 minutes can now take five.

This is not about replacing people. It is about giving them their time back.

The people who go into healthcare administration do not dream of spending eight hours a day on hold with payer portals. They got into this work because they care about patients. They want to help. But the system has buried them under so much operational drudgery that the meaningful work gets squeezed out.

I talk to clinic managers every week who tell me their coordinators are burning out. Turnover is brutal. The ones who stay are drowning. And the patients feel it too. Referrals sit for days. Appointments fall through the cracks. Care gaps stay open.

AI changes that equation. When you automate the repetitive, manual, soul-crushing tasks, something interesting happens. Staff do not disappear. They level up. They spend more time with patients who have complex needs. They catch the cases that require a human touch. They actually enjoy their work again.

This is the future I am building toward at Linear Health. Our AI handles the volume so humans can handle the exceptions. Providers see more patients. Coordinators manage larger panels without the chaos.

And the system as a whole gets more efficient without sacrificing the human connection that makes healthcare work.

I am optimistic about where this is heading. Not because AI is magic, but because the problem is so clear and the technology is finally ready. We have a real opportunity to restore joy to healthcare work. To let people do what they signed up to do.

The back office heroes deserve that. And in 2026, I think they are finally going to get it.

Connect With Sami

www.linkedin.com/in/sami-malik-9ab3b467