Empowered Patient Podcast AI Transforming Medicare Advantage Member Engagement with Dr. Saria Saccocio Essence Healthcare
Dr. Saria Saccocio, Chief Medical Officer at Essence Healthcare, is using AI to enhance care and services for patients who are enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs. One application is to analyze data related to health equity, care authorization, and to address biases. Their AI agent is being used to interact with patients, offering them the option to access a human. Integration with wearables, such as the Oura Ring, focuses on identifying clinically useful information to prevent physicians from being overwhelmed by data.
Saria explains, "Medicare Advantage plans are absolutely that. It's an advantage because of the additional benefits that exist and the opportunity to connect with our members is rather unique. In fact, what I'll share with you and the audience is that AI has been a focus for us and a priority as we continue to expand the focus on quality and engagement with our members so that they have their best quality life possible to them. AI is a major piece of this work to make that happen. I can give you a couple of examples. In fact, when it comes to health equity, CMS has recently required Medicare plans to ensure that we are analyzing our data through a health equity lens. This year, in fact, we're focused on authorizations, authorizations of care. We want to make sure that it is critical to our members and AI. I see an opportunity to recognize any blind spots or implicit bias."
"I think that every human being has a capability for technology. And what's critical is that we meet them where they are, that we understand what they want, what they need out of technology. I think that works as well as providers. As you see all of these AI developers starting up companies and solving problems, the conversation that we're having every day at Lumeris and at Essence Healthcare is what does the patient want? What does that member need for quality of care? And then engage and include the providers in that conversation. What makes their job easier? Because one of the challenges with new technology is that we can also reach a point of technology exhaustion. So I'll give an example of our relationship with Oura ring, the wearable device that tracks for sleep, for health, for heart rate, and a number of different measures."
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