Primary Care Predictions: What 2025 Taught Us—and What Comes Next

Primary care has spent the last decade absorbing wave after wave of change: new payment models, shifting patient expectations, mounting administrative burden, and now an AI revolution that is finally moving from buzzword to baseline.

At Elation, our leaders — including CEO Kyna Fong, Dr. Sara Pastoor, Head of Primary Care Advancement, Ashley Rogers, Chief Product Officer, and Phill Tornroth, VP, Engineering — see 2026 as a turning point. Their predictions point to a clear throughline: the future of primary care will be defined not by flashier algorithms, but by how well AI and policy work together to restore capacity, stability, and trust at the front lines of care.

From Buzzword to Baseline

In 2024, when clinicians talked about AI, they usually meant one thing: an AI scribe. By the end of 2025, that conversation had changed. Clinicians arrived with a far more nuanced list of asks across clinical and operational workflows, spanning documentation, inbox automation, decision support, triage, and revenue cycle optimization.

As Phill Tornroth, puts it, 2025 was the year we moved “from buzzword to baseline and expectations for what the tools can do today and how well integrated they are.” Clinicians are no longer just curious about AI; they are fluent in what they want, pushing vendors to show real-world impact across the full experience of care. The lesson for 2026 is clear: AI is no longer a side project. It is rapidly becoming part of the expected infrastructure of modern primary care, especially when it is built in, not bolted on, to the EHR and billing platform.

Prediction 1: AI Will Be Measured by Capacity to Care

In 2026, AI in healthcare will finally be judged by a simple question: does this give clinicians more capacity to care?

Elation’s CEO, Kyna, sees the early data clearly. She notes that in a recent survey, most clinicians said AI is helping them deliver higher-quality primary care, a majority reported that it is reducing stress or burnout, and a similar share said AI is giving them back more than two hours in a typical day — time they are redirecting toward listening, thinking, and being present with patients.

Those numbers hint at a fundamental shift that Elation’s leaders are already seeing in the field: when AI is woven into the workflow, rather than layered on top, it reliably removes friction instead of adding to it. Looking ahead, they expect clinical-first AI that starts with the physician’s experience and the patient relationship, not with a standalone tool. They also anticipate more “agentic” workflows that can carry a visit from outreach to documentation to follow-up tasks with minimal manual handoffs, and a reframing of AI from “extra work” to what Kyna describes as “a trusted partner that quietly restores time and clarity to primary care” while helping rebuild the foundation of strong patient-clinician relationships.

Kyna emphasizes that this shift — more than any headline-grabbing innovation — is what will define the next era of AI in healthcare.

Prediction 2: From Efficiency to Evidence and Prediction

In 2025, AI’s biggest impact in primary care was in automation: ambient documentation, chart summarization, task routing, and patient communications that finally chipped away at the “administrivia” that consumes so much clinical time.

As Dr. Sara Pastoor explains, “we are undeniably in the throes of an AI revolution, moving beyond simple digitization into an era of intelligent automation and predictive care.” For primary care, that revolution is best understood as a relief valve for burnout and a powerful augmentation tool for clinical judgment, fundamentally changing daily work by handling the administrative load that often crowds out direct care.

Looking ahead to 2026, Elation’s clinical and product leaders expect “the center of gravity [for AI] to move from efficiency alone to evidence and prediction.” They note that healthcare already accounts for a large share of the world’s data, and that a vast majority of clinical data is unstructured and effectively “dark” — stored but not used to improve care or operations. AI is the only feasible way to unlock the value in that underused information at scale.

Over the next year, Elation experts expect to see AI capabilities more deeply integrated into the EHR to deliver real-time clinical decision support, offering personalized recommendations for diagnosis and treatment planning, particularly for common chronic conditions. They also anticipate more robust population-level risk stratification, where AI helps identify patients at increased risk and guides care teams toward upstream interventions before crises occur.

Taken together, these trends point toward a shift to continuous, data-driven whole-person management, where visits become touchpoints in an ongoing, intelligence-supported relationship between care teams and patients. The key will be grounding these capabilities in rigorous evidence and transparent guardrails so clinicians understand, trust, and confidently act on AI-driven insights.

Prediction 3: Revenue Cycle Will Quietly Transform — Tasks, Not People

One of the most profound, and perhaps least flashy, areas of transformation will be revenue cycle management inside primary care.

For Dr. Pastoor, this prediction is straightforward.  As she puts it, “In 2026, we will see a fundamental shift in how revenue cycle management functions inside primary care. AI will replace tasks more than people.” In practice, that means fewer hours spent on manual transcription, chart summarization, data abstraction for quality programs, prior authorization paperwork, basic coding and billing operations, and routine inbox or scheduling triage.

As these repetitive cognitive tasks are automated, roles will evolve rather than disappear. Medical scribes will become workflow facilitators, revenue cycle teams will spend their time on exceptions and nuanced cases instead of every claim, and care coordinators will have more opportunity to be with patients and less need to chase records. New roles such as AI Integration Specialists and Clinical Relationship Managers will emerge, focused on interpreting AI-driven insights and ensuring they translate into better, more human care at the front lines.

Dr. Pastoor frames the standard clearly. As she puts it, “That’s the standard we need to hold ourselves to: clinical-first technology that clears the way for better care and stronger relationships.” The risk is that poorly designed AI could do the opposite, pushing hyperefficiency and productivity at the expense of the human experience at the heart of healthcare. The world will be watching which path the industry chooses.

Prediction 4: Policy Shocks Will Push New Primary Care Business Models

Even as technology evolves, policy may be the strongest force reshaping primary care in 2026.

Ashley Rogers, Chief Product Officer at Elation, points to 2025 as the year AI started to solve problems in primary care that were previously considered unsolvable. AI has begun to drastically reduce administrative burden and provide real-time decision support, fundamentally changing the economics of primary care practices and how scarce clinician time is allocated.

At the same time, a wave of health policy shifts — including the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) — has set off a chain reaction. New Medicaid work, reporting, and verification requirements, tighter Marketplace rules, and the lapse of enhanced premium tax credits have contributed to coverage contraction and rising premiums for Marketplace and employer-sponsored plans, with millions expected to lose coverage.

OBBBA’s expansion of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) adds another layer of change. By making most Bronze and Catastrophic Marketplace plans HSA-eligible and allowing contributions alongside direct primary care memberships, with those membership fees payable pre-tax, the legislation positions 2026 as a potential watershed year for direct primary care and membership models. Many practices will reassess whether fee-for-service reimbursement can support the kind of longitudinal, relationship-based care they want to provide.

At the same time, new Advanced Primary Care Management (APCM) codes, launched in early 2025 to support hybrid payment models and comprehensive care outside the exam room, have faced slower than expected uptake because of billing complexity, enrollment and consent requirements, and cost-sharing rules.

For many primary care organizations, Elation’s leaders see the net effect as intensifying pressure from every direction. Practices face the looming threat of lost revenue as patients lose coverage, and they are being asked to shoulder more administrative work in exchange for new financial incentives — all while seriously weighing whether to remain in the insurance-billing world or move toward more predictable membership-based models.

In this landscape, AI-native operational tools are not a nice-to-have; they are critical infrastructure. Elation experts see them as essential both to surviving the new complexity of billing and risk management and to giving practices real options to pursue value-based, hybrid, or membership-based strategies without drowning in administrative work.

Prediction 5: The AI “Bubble” Becomes a Sorting Mechanism

The question of whether healthcare is in an AI bubble now sits at the center of many boardroom and clinic-level conversations.

Phill offers a nuanced view. He acknowledges that, in many ways, we are in a bubble: AI is poised to transform how we live and work, and yet parts of the market are undeniably over-hyped. He compares it to the early days of the internet, noting that both can be true at once: some companies will not become sustainable businesses, while the underlying technology still changes everything.

There is an undeniable frenzy. Investment is pouring into AI startups at an accelerating rate, often based on promised capabilities rather than scaled clinical outcomes. Health systems feel pressure to announce an AI strategy simply to avoid falling behind.

At the same time, Elation’s leaders emphasize that the need for AI in healthcare is both real and structural. Health systems are wrestling with unmanageable costs, crushing administrative burdens, and severe workforce shortages, especially in primary care. Unsurprisingly, billions of dollars in new investment are flowing into AI that targets documentation and revenue cycle management — the places where return on investment is easiest to measure. Tools such as ambient scribes are already delivering immediate, quantifiable value to clinicians, making those investments far more durable.

Taken together, these forces suggest that 2026 will not bring a sudden collapse of interest in AI, but a sorting mechanism. As Phill and other Elation leaders see it, point solutions that do not save time, reduce cost, or improve quality will struggle to sustain adoption. In contrast, EHR-native, workflow-embedded AI that proves its impact and earns clinician trust will grow and scale. Buyers will demand stronger privacy, safety, and transparency, increasingly favoring partners who design for clinician trust and patient experience from day one.

There is still a real risk that poorly implemented AI could make current dysfunction worse by driving hyperefficiency and productivity at the expense of human experience. The path we choose — and the standards we set for AI in primary care — will determine whether this becomes a moment of meaningful progress or a missed opportunity.

What Primary Care Leaders Should Do Now

Against this backdrop, primary care leaders need a clear, practical agenda for 2026. Here are five priorities our experts recommend:

1. Anchor AI strategy in clinician experience and relationships. Start with tools that demonstrably give time back — like ambient documentation and intelligent task automation — and rigorously measure their impact on burnout, after-hours work, and patient access.

2. Build the data foundation for predictive care. Organize and structure today’s “dark data” so your practice can quickly take advantage of EHR-integrated predictive models for chronic disease management and population risk.

3. Rethink roles, not just tools. Plan now for evolving positions — including workflow facilitators, AI Integration Specialists, and Clinical Relationship Managers — to ensure AI is implemented safely and effectively in everyday practice.

4. Scenario-plan around payment and policy. Model how coverage changes, HSA expansions, and APCM adoption could affect revenue and care models, and how AI-native operations can support value-based, hybrid, or membership-based strategies.

5. Hold every vendor to a clinical-first standard. Expect technology partners to demonstrate time saved, costs reduced, and quality improved, and to design tools that strengthen — not sideline — the patient-clinician relationship.

The Bottom Line

Primary care is entering an era in which AI and policy will either compound today’s pressures or unlock a fundamentally better way to deliver longitudinal, relationship-driven care.

As Ashley observes, AI is starting to solve problems in primary care that were once considered unsolvable, from drastically reducing administrative burden to providing real-time clinical decision support. Those changes are already reshaping the economics of primary care and the day-to-day reality of practicing clinicians.

The differentiator in 2026 and beyond will not be who has the most sophisticated model, but who uses AI to quietly and reliably restore time, clarity, and stability to primary care — and who designs every workflow around clinicians and the patients they know best.

At Elation, we believe the future of primary care belongs to physicians and care teams who can practice at the top of their training, supported by technology that stays out of the way and amplifies what makes primary care indispensable: whole-person care, deep relationships, and trusted judgment. That is the future we are building toward in 2026 and beyond.