Forrester sees 2027 as the year patients stop waiting for the front door
Healthcare is heading toward an identity crisis as consumers bypass traditional entry points and build their own care pathways. Forrester’s October 14 predictions for 2027 describe a market in which AI becomes the first stop for health advice, routine check-ins move to software agents, and drugmakers sell more directly to consumers instead of relying on clinicians as the gatekeepers to treatment.
The shift is not cosmetic. It reflects a deeper change in patient behavior: people are already using public AI tools for health questions, ordering weight-loss medications online, and using at-home diagnostics to validate symptoms or digital advice before they ever speak with a clinician. In practical terms, the first interaction is no longer guaranteed to happen inside a clinic, a call center, or even a health system portal. It may happen in a chatbot window, a consumer app, or a home testing kit purchased without a clinician in the middle.
More than half of U.S. consumers are expected to turn to public AI tools first when seeking healthcare guidance by 2027. Forrester’s warning is straightforward: if health systems do not invest in answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization, they risk becoming invisible at the very moment patients begin searching for care.
AI, insurers and drugmakers are all pushing toward direct access
The clearest signal in the forecast is the speed with which consumers are normalizing AI in everyday health decisions. Pew Research Center has already found that 34% of U.S. adults use AI chatbots for health-related reasons and 25% use them to figure out what is causing their symptoms. Those are not niche behaviors. They show a meaningful share of adults are already treating AI as a triage layer, even before a human clinician enters the picture.
For hospitals and medical groups, this changes the economics of trust. Visibility will no longer depend only on referral networks, specialty reputation, or a strong local brand. It will also depend on whether accurate clinical information appears when patients ask a machine what to do next. A health system that cannot be found by an AI-driven search layer may lose the patient before the first appointment is even scheduled.
Forrester extends that logic to coverage design. It predicts five of the 10 largest health insurers will unveil alternative health plans by 2027, as premiums climb again and employers search for more predictable cost structures. Marketplace and small-group customers are expected to face double-digit premium increases, and insurers will need products that compete with emerging coverage models built around transparency rather than traditional deductible-heavy designs.
UnitedHealthcare’s Surest and Health Care Service Corp.’s Easify Edge illustrate the direction of travel. Both move away from standard deductibles and toward upfront, fixed costs. In a market defined by price anxiety, that kind of simplicity can be as persuasive as a narrower network or a richer benefit package.
Routine care may shift to medically trained AI agents
Forrester expects AI agents to handle 20% of routine care check-ins by 2027. Medication renewals, chronic disease monitoring, care navigation and wellness support are all likely candidates. The driver is not just consumer preference. It is a response to workforce shortages and rising demand for ongoing touchpoints that do not always require a physician, nurse practitioner or physician assistant.
The logic is operationally appealing. Routine questions follow patterns, and many of them can be handled safely if workflows are tightly defined and escalation rules are clear. A medication refill request, for example, often requires structured review rather than a full clinical encounter. A blood pressure check-in or a diabetes coaching prompt can also be standardized if the patient is already enrolled in a monitoring program.
But the handoff only works if organizations are disciplined about boundaries. Complex cases must move quickly to clinicians, and the governance structure has to determine which interactions are safe to automate, which require oversight, and which should never be handed to software at all. Reimbursement remains a separate hurdle, because AI-led care cannot become durable without a payment model that rewards time, accountability and safety rather than treating automation as an unfunded side task.
Consumer interest appears strong enough to justify the experiment. Forrester says 41% of U.S. online adults are at least somewhat interested in care from medically trained AI models. Utah’s Doctronic pilot, which is testing AI for prescription renewals and new prescriptions, is one early example of how quickly the concept is moving from prediction to deployment.
GLP-1 demand is redrawing the direct-to-consumer playbook
Forrester’s fourth prediction focuses on GLP-1 use, but the larger message is about consumer expectations. One in five Americans is expected to take a GLP-1 by 2027, and the drugs’ direct-to-consumer model is likely to spread to other treatments. The significance goes beyond obesity pharmacotherapy. Consumers are learning that they can research, obtain and receive treatment largely on their own terms.
More than half of adults surveyed by Forrester said they research medications before speaking with a physician, and one-fifth already have medications delivered to their homes. That behavior matters because it shifts power away from traditional entry points. When patients can move from symptom recognition to product selection to delivery without a standard office visit, the health system becomes one option among several rather than the default starting point.
Women’s health, dermatology and longevity care are likely to be especially vulnerable to this shift because they are preference-sensitive, often stigmatized, or burdened by access delays. Novant Health’s virtual men’s health clinic, launched October 20 to evaluate and treat erectile dysfunction and other sexual health concerns, shows how health systems are already trying to meet that demand with privacy and convenience.
The business implication is blunt. Drugmakers are likely to spend more on direct-to-consumer engagement and virtual care partnerships, and that spending will further reduce the provider’s role as the main gateway to treatment.
At-home testing could widen the gap between the well-resourced and everyone else
Forrester’s final prediction is the one with the clearest equity implications. It expects at-home diagnostics to become a regular part of care for 25% of consumers by 2027, as wearables, digital wellness tools and AI coaches continue flooding patients with advice. Home testing can improve early detection and reduce friction, but it can also widen the gap between consumers who can afford these tools and those who cannot.
A wealthier patient can confirm a digital recommendation with a home kit, act early, and enter the system with data in hand. A lower-income patient may receive the same digital guidance without the means to verify it or respond quickly. The result is a two-speed prevention model, where early detection becomes easier for those already advantaged.
Health systems that expand access to testing and help patients interpret results may blunt that divide. Without that kind of support, home diagnostics could become another channel through which preventive care tilts toward the already connected and financially secure.
Forrester’s 2027 outlook is less about a single disruptive technology than about the erosion of the old sequence of care. Patients are moving first, and institutions are being forced to follow.