Technology companies and investors have spent a year communicating with Trump administration health officials through a government-run Slack workspace, with some advocating easier access to patients' medical records through AI health apps, an investigation by KFF Health News has found.

The report, published on 9 October 2026, raises questions about transparency, patient privacy and whether such talks should happen in public.

A Private Chat Room With 1,700 Members

Key facts: the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) opened the Slack workspace in August 2025. It now has about 1,700 members, but only a handful are patient advocates, doctors or hospital representatives. A February Food and Drug Administration listening session on conversational AI drew at least 35 industry organisations but did not appear on the public calendar.

KFF Health News reviewed thousands of Slack messages, meeting transcripts and video recordings. Members include representatives from Oura Health, Palantir and the venture capital firm 8VC. CMS has not formally announced the chat room through federal regulatory channels.

Joseph Daval, a former FDA lawyer now at Harvard Medical School, told the outlet the group resembles a federal advisory committee, a type of panel that must operate openly. CMS declined to answer questions about its legality. Amy Gleason, the agency's chief product officer for health technology, said in a statement that the initiative is a voluntary, open collaboration.

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Officials Promised a Boost for AI Health Apps

Jacob Shiff, chief AI and technology officer at the CMS Innovation Center, told industry representatives in a February video call that he hoped the agency's work would be a 'sales engine' for the apps. A recording of that call was made private the day after KFF Health News asked about it.

The recently launched Medicare App Library currently promotes two dozen commercial apps to older and disabled Americans, including products from Microsoft and Google. CMS did not explain how apps are chosen.

Officials also suggested in at least two meetings that listed apps would be prioritised for a new programme reimbursing companies for AI chatbot advice or wearable tracking. That sits awkwardly with the workspace's code of conduct, which describes it as not a forum for advising CMS or HHS officials.

What It Could Mean for Your Medical Records

At the centre of the debate is how much access apps should receive. Tech vendors have lobbied the government to treat vetted apps like patients requesting their own records, giving them wide reach into the national exchange network known as TEFCA. Some argued on Slack that, once a user has consented, verified apps should keep open-ended access.

Not everyone in the industry agreed. Jason Kulatunga, who runs the records platform Fasten Health, warned that privacy and security systems must be designed around malicious actors, particularly if thousands of apps join. John Whyte, chief executive of the American Medical Association, said some tools were not ready for primetime and carried no liability if they err.

Gleason told an audience in Washington in September that patients can now send records to the app of their choice with one click, achieved without rulemaking. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has also publicly endorsed AI in healthcare, claiming it is better informed than any doctor in the country. The FDA did not respond to a request for comment on how AI health apps will be regulated.

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