Virtual care and health navigation company Included Health, launched a new artificial intelligence-powered tool aimed at helping members find in-network care.
Provider Connect uses a proprietary match engine to recommend the best-fit providers for each user, including explanations of quality scores. Embedded in the company’s AI assistant, the integrated platform is built on “tens of billions” of clinical and cost point data from millions of patients and uses more than 300 specialty-specific quality measures, according to the company.
“This release is bringing the power of AI to make it really easy to highlight some of these features, and be more transparent about what makes someone high quality so that a member can understand it," Nupur Srivastava, Included Health chief operating officer, told Fierce Healthcare.
Included Health works with health plans and employers, including one-third of the Fortune 100, according to Srivastava. The company provides healthcare benefits and insurance navigation, as well as virtual primary care, behavioral health, specialty care, expert medical opinions and urgent care appointments. It rolled out its personalized AI assistant and chatbot—dubbed Dot—in December.
The AI solution answers members' questions about specific health benefits and coverage to help find in-network providers.
Srivastava said early feedback on Provider Connect has been “extremely positive.”
“[Clients] feel like we're providing a level of transparency that is rare in the industry,” she said. “Even our providers can understand why, if you focus on connecting someone to high-quality care, it will actually lead to not only better healthcare outcomes, but also lower costs.”
Moreover, according to Srivastava, one of the most important components of healthcare, is the interaction between patients and providers.
“If you can optimize that match, there's a much higher chance that the downstream effects are in a much more controlled manner that helps better outcomes and savings,” Srivastava said.