The Executive Guide to Policy & Regulation in 2026
A working brief for leaders evaluating policy & regulation investments: evidence, market reality, and the questions that matter.
Every technology budget tells a story, and in policy & regulation the 2026 story is one of consolidation, evidence, and reimbursement finally catching up with capability. This guide distills what we hear from operators and what the data shows into a working brief for executives.
Start with the problem, not the product
The costliest failures in this category share a root cause: technology purchased before the workflow, staffing, and payment model to absorb it existed. The discipline that separates successful programs is unglamorous - governance first, a narrowly scoped pilot second, measurement third, and scale only when the first three hold.
The market reality
Consider the current numbers: cMS launched a dedicated Office of Health Technology Products to steer AI and interoperability policy (our coverage).
Meanwhile, the FDA-CMS TEMPO pilot ties regulatory evaluation to real-world outcomes and Medicare coverage, with Dexcom as its first participant (our coverage).
Meanwhile, the proposed CY2027 fee schedule would create Medicare's first payment category for clinical AI software (our coverage).
Meanwhile, eleven states have enacted twenty laws governing AI in mental health, from outright bans to crisis-routing mandates (our coverage).
Questions to ask every vendor
Where is the peer-reviewed or real-world evidence, and on a population like ours? What happens to our data - who trains on it, who profits from it? What does integration actually require from our EHR team? And what is the exit: if we terminate, what do we keep? Vendors comfortable with these questions tend to be the ones still standing in three years.
The bottom line
Policy & Regulation rewards patient, evidence-driven adopters. Track the category daily on our Policy & Regulation page and the topic feeds beneath it.