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Thursday, 4 June 2026 |
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| In the spirit of keeping up with how health insurers are using AI, I chatted with Elevance Health’s Ratnakar Lavu this week. |
| The chief digital information officer has held roles at Kohl’s, Nike and Macy’s, so I wasn’t too surprised to hear he’s focused on simplifying experiences for plan members, healthcare providers and Elevance’s own employees. Retailers have an obvious advantage in that domain. Elevance is trying to catch up, investing more than $1 billion in digital and AI capabilities. |
| A couple of comments stood out to me. |
- Elevance has transformed its consumer app Sydney so that members can speak with a chatbot that will surface personalized answers to benefits questions. For instance, the chatbot can tell a member whether knee surgery is covered and find a doctor who can provide quality care at the best price, Lavu explained. If it works, that’s a clear improvement over manually searching benefits manuals and provider directories.
- Humans will always be involved, whether that’s in the prior authorization process or when guiding members through care. “We also want to make sure that it's an empathetic experience, which I think humans will have to be in the loop for that to actually kind of work well for our members,” he said. He gave a similar response when I asked what health insurance jobs AI will make obsolete.
- AI is making it easier for Elevance to spot fraud, waste or abuse that’s driving up healthcare spending. “AI can help identify patterns of upcoding much more easily compared to the previous way of doing it,” he said.
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| I often go into conversations with healthcare execs hoping to hear about some wild new AI use case. That didn’t happen this time (and it usually doesn’t). For many companies, AI is about improving or speeding up processes and tools they already have — not necessarily inventing new ones. |
| Lavu said it best: “We have a practical way of applying AI, where we're solving the right problems for our stakeholders, like members and providers and associates.” |
| - Shelby |
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Who wears what |
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Rock Health has a new analysis out on what wearable adoption looked like in 2025, with the majority still centered around smart watches. One observation from the report that stuck out to us: Smart watch ownership skews toward women, while other wearable devices tend to have more adoption from men. |
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Worldwide made. Thanks for reading.
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