Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast Redefining Payer Strategy: From Benefit Design to Intelligent Care Delivery
Jun 5, 2025
Nirnay Patel, EVP and GM of Benefits1 at Simplify Healthcare, dives into the transformative power of AI and integrated benefits data in healthcare. He introduces 'Benny', an AI assistant aimed at simplifying benefits access for members. Nirnay emphasizes the importance of bridging care design and delivery to reduce operational silos. He discusses the growing demand for benefit-navigation tools and the need for payers to focus on personalized member experiences and strategic partnerships for better outcomes.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Benefits As The Integration Layer
- Benefits data can serve as the single source of truth that links care design and care delivery across stakeholders.
- Nirnay Patel argues centralizing benefits prevents fragmented data and reduces manual errors during care episodes.
Use AI For Frontline Answers And Back-Office Automation
- Deploy applied AI to deliver benefits knowledge in natural language at the point of need to members and reps.
- Automate backend benefit matching and plan recommendations to save time and lower operational cost.
Benny Example: Natural-Language Benefits Help
- Nirnay describes Benny, an AI assistant that answers member questions using the platform's benefits data.
- He shows how Benny can replace multi-step phone calls by sourcing answers directly from the design-of-care data.