The Revolution in Data and AI is Changing Healthcare for Both Businesses and Consumers

Diana Ransom: Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming today. Again, my name is Diana Ransom. I'm an executive editor at Inc., and I'm pleased to be here to discuss the important and timely topic of healthcare benefits and how, if at all, technology can help us make sense of them. I'm joined by two incredible panelists, Stephen Sofoul, who's the co-founder and CEO of a company called Benefits Science, and Guy Benjamin, who's co-founder and CEO of Healthee, a company that offers to use AI to help consumers better understand their employer health policies. So come on out to the stage, Stephen and Guy.

I see you've seeded the audience. Okay. Sorry, I will be laughing at my own jokes. So, Guy, let's start with you. I'm sure people in the audience heard me say, you know, AI and health policy, and they're very curious. What does that actually mean? Tell us a little bit more about what you do at Healthee.

Guy Benjamin: Yeah, so, what we do at Healthee is that we basically use AI to make healthcare much more accessible. And the way we do it is we know how to take any health plan, medical, dental, vision, any point solutions or benefits that the employer provides and then convert them using AI from an unstructured data source, which is just a nicer way to say a PDF, to a mapped database. And once we do that conversion, we provide basically every employee kind of like a platform, think about like a Siri or an Alexa, what we call her Zoe, and Zoe can answer any question about your health benefits because she already kind of knows them, right?

So, any employee can go to Zoe and say, "Hey Zoe, my daughter needs a speech therapist." And Zoe will tell them if they're covered for it, based on their plan. She'll tell them where can they get it done, based on their network. She'll tell them how much it's going to cost, based on their deductible, and even based on how much each location will charge, and book them an appointment. So we're kind of leveraging AI into making healthcare much more accessible by meeting employees where they are, which is usually digital or on their phone, right?

Diana: Yeah, so this seems like one of those ideas when you hear it just, completely brilliant. Anyone who's ever had to like weed through their companies and, you know, health insurance policies, really, it's awful stuff. So, I commend you for doing it. But where did the idea come from? I understand you've had an interesting background.

Guy: Yeah. So, my background is very, very different, I would say. So my first career, I used to be a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force. I flew F 16s for about 13 years. Again, back in Israel, which has a very, very different healthcare system. And then when I came here to the U.S., I went to Yale and then started working at McKinsey, the consulting firm. And while I was working there, I kind of noticed that every time I have a question about my benefits, I get sent to HR, they send me to a call center, wasn't really the experience I was hoping to get, and also realized that I know nothing about my health benefits. I'm spending more money than I should be, and I'm missing out a lot of benefits. So it got me thinking that there has to be a way to kind of leverage technology to just make healthcare much more accessible, so that's how we kind of got started.

Diana: That's great. I'm surprised McKinsey didn't try to take your idea. Anyway, that's for another topic. So, Stephen, I also think your company is innovative in its own right, and would hope that you would want to talk about it for a minute. So, basically, you all offer to help the insurance companies, help their members, help insurance companies and other providers, for instance, help their members better understand their members, for instance. So why don't you go ahead and tell us what you do.

Stephen Sofoul: Yeah, so Guy's focus is really on the consumer, the member's experience. Ours has been predominantly on the employer side or the carrier side, really the risk bearer. And so our company ingests data sets, large data sets that are generated as members go to get services at the health care providers, will take in medical claims, pharmacy claims, any other claims that are generated, labs, imaging. And we use a number of different data science techniques to study that data, and then to provide recommendations. Analytics today, historically descriptive analytics, is essentially just telling you what has already happened. Today, we use predictive models to predict what's likely to happen. But that's not even enough. We go now to prescriptive analytics, which is, "Tell me what to do about it. How do I make decisions using all of this information?" And that's essentially what we do.

Diana: So, we had a prep call before today and I got serious minority report vibes from this. It's like, oh my god, you can tell when I'm about to commit a crime, or you can tell when I'm about to, you know, need surgery. This is incredible. So, can you talk about the, I guess, your reach to this point? Like, how many different insurance companies are you working with? And how many different consumers, like me, who are employed by a company, are you touching right now?

Stephen: Sure. Yeah, so Benefit Science was a fairly small company. Essentially, we're processing data, I would say, on about 7 million member lives a month. We were acquired in May, by a company called Multiplan, and Multiplan is a large company that essentially works with the top 15 insurance companies, 600 different payers. And so, we're now ingesting claims in the order of 500 million claims a year.

Diana: Incredible. I forgot to mention this, everyone. We are leaving some time open toward the end of our session for your questions. So, if you can think of something as we're going through the chat today, please go ahead and type it into your app, I guess, is the way to refer to that. So, anyway, if you got something, let us know. Okay, so, question for both of you here is, sort of, what are the biggest pain points that you're seeing, you know, your constituencies have these days?

Guy, why don't you go first?

Guy: Yeah, so obviously there's tons of problems in the U.S. healthcare system, right? We all know it, it's pretty broken. But I would say, if I have to say one thing that's really kind of under our mind, and on our users' mind, is transparency. Right? Because think about your experience with healthcare today. Your experience with anything but healthcare, right? When you go on Amazon, think about if I told you to use Amazon, but there were no prices. Or think about if I told you to use any device, but you just don't know how to use it, because there's no instructions. And I feel like that's what our users, or customers are trying to fix because today you may go an MRI and you have no clue if it's going to be a $200 MRI or $2,000 MRI.

And we know that 70% of people in the U.S. will just not go to a doctor because they're not sure how much it's going to cost. And I think transparency is a really big issue that we're really trying to tackle, and we are, by providing better access to healthcare, but also access to data, to tell them, "Okay, this is how much it's going to cost. This is what you're covered for, this is what you can expect." So transparency for me is like the biggest one.

Diana: Yeah, absolutely. I've had many, many conversations with our medical provider just trying to figure out can we go see the endocrinologist? Is that within our possibility? My son stuck a gem up his nose. All things. So Stephen, similar question, or same question, really. What are the pain points?

Stephen: Yeah, I mean, I agree with Guy. Transparency has been a huge issue. In fact, there were regulations passed a year and a half ago requiring insurance companies to now disclose the prices that are charged for services. And so we're ingesting a lot of that data. We have 500 billion records. It's just an immense amount of data. And so, somebody has to make sense of all that. We focus on helping the employers and the carriers understand how to make better decisions with the spend. And, you know, Guy does a great job focusing on helping the members make better decisions.

Diana: Right? And also, I mean, the news recently shows that health insurance rates are skyrocketing for employers, in particular with 7.5% or 6.5%. I might be off by a percentage there but the point is, it's going up and, you know, businesses are having a difficult time affording it. How are you seeing folks coping these days?

Guy: Yeah, well, first of all, I would say that it's not only on employers, because yes, there's been a 25% increase in the premiums in the last four years, but there's also been a doubling. Like in the last 10 years, deductibles have doubled for employees. So it's not just the burden on employers, it's the burden on employees as well. What we're seeing to kind of really help tackle this, what we're seeing from our customers is they're doing a few things. One is just trying to help educate employees. And for example, what is the difference between an in- and out-of-network when you think about going to a doctor? What, how can you shop around? Exactly what you mentioned, like you should know now when you go to a hospital, how much it's going to charge. They're obliged by law to kind of tell you how much it's going to cost. So you should ask for it.

And we also see a lot of steerage. Because you want to steer employees to lower cost options that are still high quality. For example, Telehealth, right? So, we're still not seeing enough usage of Telehealth, but that could be a huge way to kind of reduce your cost. One of the things that we did is we actually implemented Telehealth into our platform. So, when somebody or a user asks a question about a need, if Telehealth is relevant, it will show up first and it can help steer them towards those lower cost options.

Diana: And also just knowing in advance that something is lower cost, but also equally beneficial, equally efficient, you know, or effective. I mean, that means everything.

Guy: MRI is always the best example because if I look now on our platform, I can find an MRI for $4,000 and I can find an MRI for $200. And I keep telling people, it's not a golden MRI; it's the exact same MRI. But that's kind of like the way the market works.

Diana: It's like a luxury MRI.

Guy: Yeah, there's no luxury MRI. It's the exact same one.

Diana: Okay. So Stephen, I wonder if you could talk about this too, like how are you seeing folks coping with higher cost?

Stephen: I mean, this is a constant source of frustration I think for employers that, as Guy said, the trend in healthcare just continues to outpace revenue growth and areas that can offset some of those costs. And so I think there's a constant, sort of battle for employers to understand, what can I do? How can I lower costs? And unfortunately, a lot of that ends up getting shifted to employees. And so it's not enough to just say, I gotta keep my cost down because then the employees are dramatically impacted. And so you constantly have to manage looking for a better benefits program. I mean, TriNet is the best in the business that we have seen in this area. We've worked with them for a number of years, and they actively manage their healthcare costs. And this is an area that, if you don't have experts looking at it and helping control costs, it can very quickly, you know, outpace your ability to keep up with it. And so, you end up, over time, having worse benefits. The healthy people will leave the health plan. And so you're left with a sicker population, which ultimately ends up in a very bad place.

Diana: Yeah. It's also interesting that you provide preventative, I guess, tools, too, right? Because the idea is that you prevent someone from needing surgery, theoretically, the more expensive procedures.

Stephen: Yeah, so this is one of those areas where technology is really making a difference. So we have a predictive model that when we run claims data through it, we can identify individuals who are likely to need a surgery in the next 12 months. And to your point, it might sound a little bit minority report, but the purpose of that is to help an individual who needs to be engaged with a Centers of Excellence program or just needs to perhaps even the physical therapy that is being done now, even before surgery takes place. We can now see those things happening before it's too late. And so if we can use those models and use technology to help members engage in the right preventative programs, then it's likely that a percentage of that population may not need the surgery at all. The ones who do need it, it might be a less severe event if they've had the appropriate treatment ahead of time.

Diana: And then, oh sorry, go ahead.

Guy: In the U.S., there's about $50 billion a year that is spent on late detection because exactly what you mentioned, right, that we're not detecting things in time. And just something funny that happened in our platform a few weeks ago, where we just, we always talk about that most employees don't even know that preventive care is usually free. And one of our users just got on the platform and the first question they asked is, "What do I have for free?" And they were shocked to see that, well, they have a lot of stuff for free, like a yearly physical, dental cleaning, and it's things that we are not just educated enough, or not educating our employees enough, that all those preventive care is free.

Diana: That's a good article right there. And one we should be writing at Inc. and hopefully we will soon. So, I also wanted to ask you about ICHRAs. It's not just fun to say. It's an acronym for individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements. So, this is like the idea of employers pushing off more and more of the costs onto employees. And, to be frank, they are surging in interest right now, because employers can't afford health insurance or they are continually not able to afford it. So, what have you seen in terms of ICHRAs and does it worry you? Is this something, is this like the future?

Stephen: I mean, from our lens, it's still a very, very small part of the overall, especially in the employer health plan, space. So, even though there is interest, I mean, traditionally in health care, anytime there's a new approach, then there's interest, and then you just have to see if it has staying power or not. I think ultimately, from my view, it really just shifts the burden to the individual. We know that most consumers are not well educated to make the best decisions in this area, and so it doesn't necessarily solve the problem, right? It just sort of shifts it over. So I think that employers who do a good job managing their care or hiring companies like TriNet to manage those benefits for them along with the right personalization, the tools that Healthee provides and other companies that are helping trying to educate individuals on how to use their health plan, is probably more of a long term solution, than simply shifting the burden, you know, away from the employer and sort of just putting the money on the table and then saying, "Look, you have to figure it out on your own."

Diana: Right, or there's a single payer option.

Stephen: Right.

Diana: Seems sort of easy. Okay, so we talked about, sort of some of the things that you suggested, or that you're seeing clients do in terms of stemming rising healthcare costs, but let's talk a little bit more about technology. Clearly, you both have skin in the game. You guys produce technology that helps people stem healthcare costs, but what are you seeing in the future? Like, where are we going with this?

Guy: So, in my mind where I definitely say where we're not going, and we're not going towards a world where it's only going to be on HR, right? So I think one of the things that we're seeing with our customers, or who are not yet our customers, is that they're really reliant on HR or people to kind of provide those answers and education to employees. But you can't fight change, and you can't fight demographics, and demographics are changing. Millennials, Gen Zers, they're not going to call, they're barely calling their mom, let alone a call center, or coming to HR with questions. So I think if we really want to know kind of like where we're going, it's the use of technology. Not to talk about the fact that it's much more personalized. Like if I have mental health issues or when I had mental health needs, I didn't want to go to HR and say, "Hey, what are we covering for mental health?"

So, the fact that we're now seeing more and more usage of technology that is much more personalized, much more instant that's something where we're going. And we're going to see more and more of those technology evolve to, kind of like, not just help you knowing what you're covered for, helping you pick a plan, right? That's something that we also do at Healthee. We help employees pick the best plan for them and their family because we know that 50% of employees choose the wrong plan. I had a call with an HR leader a few days ago and I asked them, "How do you help your employees choose a plan?" And I kid you not, this is what they said. They said, "Well, I just tell them what I picked," and which is probably the worst answer you can provide. That's what we're doing. We're trying to bring in technology to every part of the value chain, right? Helping you pick a plan, helping you navigate your plan, helping you with billing. And even, this is kind of a teaser, to also what we're working on next. We wanna help employers pick a plan, because as an employer, one of my worst experiences as an employer was to pick plans for my employees. I was handed 70 plans and was told, "Hey, pick three."

Diana: Oh.

Guy: And it was a, you know, terrible experience. So that's also something that we can help with data, with technology to kind of recommend which plan to offer your employees.

Diana: Right. You end up going to the cheapest one.

Guy: Yes, which is not the…

Diana: Not necessarily the best.

Guy: Could be good for what you need. But if you're not using technology and if you're not using data, then you're betting.

Diana: Right. I mean, business owners are busy. It's really hard to spend the time sifting through 70 different plans.

Guy: And we were talking backstage about how your technology and claims data can really actually help you understand have you made the right choice, right? Because you can look at your claims and say, well, if I had picked a different plan, I would have paid less money. And, you know, again, lowering costs. The main reason for bankruptcy in the U.S. is health care bills.

Diana: And Stephen, what are you seeing on the horizon in terms of technology changing or helping?

Stephen: Yeah, I think one of the things I'm really excited about is connecting people with their personal data. And we see this, anyone who has an iPhone, I actually don't have one, but if you have an iPhone and you use their health app, you know that the iPhone can keep track now of your heart rate and it can identify when, you know, your stress levels are rising. It can monitor your sleep patterns, how well you've slept. Over time, I imagine our personal devices are gonna know more and more information about our health. And, you know, traditionally, we have no idea how to make good health decisions. On my Instagram, just yesterday, I saw one person say, "Don't eat carbs." And a couple of minutes later, it's like, that's the worst advice you could ever be given, right? You have to have carbs.

And so it's so confusing, I think, for people in general, to make really good and personalized health decisions. And so the technology for me is all about, how can I help? How can people make better decisions using data? And we are. Unfortunately, Amazon has been doing it for a long time. The travel industry has been using your data to make recommendations. Healthcare has just been very, very slow to adopt technology. And it is complex, but I think that's where I personally am most excited about the future. It's just people having access to their information to make better decisions.

Diana: Okay, so Guy back to you. I know we talked a little bit about Zoe, the AI assistant that Healthee uses or that people get to use when they use Healthee. So besides typing in, how do I save money or like what can I get for free? How does Healthee help people? How does Zoe help people save money?

Guy: Yes. So Zoe, I think, is first of all, just part of the platform, right? What we provide is a one stop AI. We like to call it one stop AI shop, which basically means a place where employees, because when you think about employees' needs, it's not just knowing what they're covered for. So when we started the company about two and a half years ago, we kind of look, okay, what are our needs?

And it wasn't hard to find because it's our needs, right? It's everybody's needs. So we need to pick a plan during open enrollment. We know that we need to find doctors. We need to book appointment, know if a doctor is in network, ID cards, deductible. There's so many different needs that we have as a healthcare consumer, but today we either don't have the right tools, or we have too many tools, and we're gonna get lost. So what we said is, okay, that's not the experience we want to provide employees. We want to provide employees kind of like more of an Amazon experience, where everything is in one place. So what we provide them is a tool or platform, where they can do everything. They can pick a plan, they can find doctors, book appointments, ID cards, deductible, even know how much things are gonna cost right before they need to get them done.

And then on top of everything, kind of Zoe sits as that personal health assistant and you can literally come with any question to Zoe. She can help you find doctors or she can help you know if you're covered for something. She can help you think about, okay, I'm thinking about having another baby next year. What would be the cost? Where should I go? So it's really kind of across the board on what Healthee can do or what Zoe does. But at the end of the day, what you see is that employees need help. Cross the value chain, right? So that's gonna like what we do.

Diana: I think if I knew how much children really were, I don't know if I would have had two. But I love that. So Stephen, I kind of go back to this sort of similar question about like how technology is going to change things. We talked about health care, health insurance, for instance. But what about other benefits? Like, what do you see happening?

Stephen: I mean, technology is going to help individuals use their benefits in a much more productive way. One example, our company works with some of these supplemental insurance companies that sell hospital, accident, critical illness insurance. Traditionally, those insurance policies are not well utilized. People buy them, they may forget they bought them or they may not connect the dots. That experience or a claim they just had is reimbursable under these plans. So, we have a solution that we've built that is monitoring. A person has to opt in to this, and we monitor their claims, and when we see a claim that's reimbursable under one of their policies, we alert them to file the claim.

Now, one cool advancement in that space that's taking place in this coming year is we have a particular, one of the companies that we work with who has said, “You know what? Why do we need the member to file at all? If you see that it's a reimbursable claim, why can't we just pay the claim?” And so in one case in the last three months, I had a phone call from a friend of ours who is the chief strategy officer at one of these companies- and he said, “Hey, I need you to listen to a phone call that we just received.” And so he let me hear it, essentially, it was a husband who just lost his wife to a critical illness and he was calling the customer service line because he noticed a payment was in his bank account from this insurance company. And he said, "I know it was a mistake, I'd already received the life benefit." And so the customer service agent said, you know, I'll be happy to help and look up and make sure that this wasn't a mistake. And so she comes back on the line within a few seconds and said, "No, we noticed that, you know, why your wife passed and this condition and it was reimbursable under your policy."

And literally a $35,000 payment showed up in his account without filing a claim. And my friend, who's the chief strategy officer, said "This was your technology that let us do this." And it was. I told him, "Look, I don't know. Thank you.” I said, "I don't know what it costs. I think it's like $7 million, but you need to get your CEO to finance a Super Bowl commercial." Because this is the message of what insurance companies need to be doing in the future, right? It's proactively providing their service, as opposed to only paying when they have to, but looking for ways to create a better experience for their policy holders. And this is really technology-driven.

Diana: That just seems so logical. So it's good that you're making it happen. So, thank you. Guy, if you could interject here. As we asked, we talked about health insurance, I could totally see Healthee applied in other use cases, too. Are you working on that or is that down the pipeline?

Guy: No, it's already there. So we're now not just providing access to your health, medical, dental, which is kind of like the table stakes. We're also added ancillary benefits, you know, benefits like telehealth or benefits like preventive care. So everything around kind of the benefits that an employee has, we're just, we added that to the platform. And we did that in the last few months. And it means that now employees are our customers. They have just one place for all their benefit, not just their health benefits, but also anything else that they have available for their employer. And again, it goes back to that providing an employee kind of that experience where it's all in one place.

We don't send them to any other platform or location. We just keep them in the same Healthee platform for the same user experience. We like to say, and we are, we're user obsessed. Meaning we're trying to make everything as accessible. We're trying to make it all kind of a click or two away, because we want to, and we keep updating by the way, the platform based on what we're seeing from our users, based on their feedback. So, yes, we already added ancillary benefits, and again, there's more things that we want to add to provide that holistic, kind of platform for the employee.

Diana: So let's put your founder hat on for a minute and you describe, you know, sifting through 70 different health plans, which is daunting. If you're an entrepreneur and you're just starting up, what benefits should you be offering? I mean, clearly there's health insurance and dental, as you mentioned, or table stakes, but what else should we do?

Guy: I honestly think that you should just ask your employees what they're looking for, right? You should talk to your employees and see what their needs are. You should look at data. You should look at demographics. You should understand, do you have employees that are about to have babies? Do you have employees that are dealing with older parents at home or younger kids at home? That's the way I was thinking about it. When I got the 70 plans, I was saying, okay, let's look at who do we have in the company and what do they need. And I think the right approach is to just be very, very data driven when you make those decisions because those are probably one of the most important decisions that you're making that are affecting your employees' lives and their pocket.

Diana: Right. It often ends up being an afterthought, though.

Guy: Yeah.

Diana: Like, I remember I interviewed one of the co-founders, Bobby, who was one of the first employees of Airbnb and she was the first one to have a baby. And so she actually had to write the company's child policy, leave policy. So it's kind of wild that wasn't thought of before.

Guy: It cannot be an afterthought.

Diana: Right. Did you have any input on that?

Stephen: I agree completely with Guy. It's challenging because the company has a finite amount of dollars to spend in this area. And there is 401k, there's health benefits, there's all the ancillary and supplemental benefits, there's disability benefits. It's a complex decision that has to be tailored to the needs of the organization and it's not the same answer for a young population as it might be for mid-career populations. So I think it does have to take into account the makeup of the organization and find that balance. I'm a big believer in consumer directed health plans where the employees have a skin in the game, but also where an employer will fund contributions towards those benefits. So, I think these are complex decisions. There's a lot of options out there. They now have pet insurance, and, you know, some companies are even using benefit dollars to reduce student loans and other burdens.

Diana: Amazing.

Stephen: Yeah. There's health and wellness or mental health benefits, which weren't really very well thought of a decade ago. So there's so many options. It really has to be tailored to the needs of the population.

Diana: At the same time, people don't really know what they want or will need. We do have time for questions. Do we have any audience questions? Will they show up on this little screen here?

Guy: There's a question over there.

Diana: Oh. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Right, so the question is—are these technologies strictly sort of contained among corporations or can individual consumers say this woman's 85-year-old grand? Yeah. Right, Medicare and Medicaid sector.

Guy: For us, I would say, we're still a young company, we're a startup, we're two years old and one of the things that we need to be is focused. And we're now currently focusing on—it's good to incorporate the employer benefit kind of world, but it's definitely in our roadmap. We want to look at Medicare. We want to look at Medicaid. We want to look at direct to consumer. There's definitely a lot of things that we still have to fix there as well and it's definitely in our roadmap.

Stephen: Yeah, I actually do think the government is interested in technology just like employers are. Actually, the CMS was one of the early innovators around enabling individuals to make their claims data available to third party companies. So if you're on Medicare today, you can elect to have your data shared with any number of third parties that could provide services back to you. So I think there's a recognition that most people, young and old, have a very difficult time making good decisions in the healthcare space. I think we're still in the early innings of a very long ballgame. And so, there's much to do, but over time, I mean, even banking, 10 years ago, anybody over 40 wasn't using their phone to do banking. Today, almost everybody has adopted that technology. I think healthcare will follow similarly. People will use more and more of these navigation tools and consumer enhancement solutions.

Guy: Yeah, I agree. Because I think user expectations are changing, right? Like, we're going to have more and more of these people that are 26 becoming part of their health care system because they're not on their parents' health care anymore. And they have different expectations than the 26-year-old that were 20 years ago, right? So they're not expecting to call anybody. They're expecting for technology to solve those issues.

Diana: Yeah, right, we've gotten used to it, right? So the camera is in the way of this question. But with AI and other innovations. Are we finally on? Okay. With AI and other innovations are we finally on the cusp of meaningful change in our health care system? This was an audience question. Guy?

Guy: I would say yes, completely. I mean, that's what we're striving for. I mean, our vision is to make health care much more accessible. And the only way that we know how to do it is with technology. And I feel like there is again, expectations are changing, but also the companies are understanding that without technology, it's just not going to work. So yes, definitely, I think we're on the cusp of it, and in my mind, we're already there.

Stephen: Yeah, and I think the innovation is there. There's no question about it. With CRISPR, with some of the technology around surgical instruments, that can now be done in a way that would have been impossible before with a surgeon in a different location from the patient. I think the innovation is there that the concern that I have is just cost, right? That's not real clear right now in the healthcare sector. How are we going to control the rising, the acceleration of cost in this space? So I'm not afraid at all of the advancements and the pace that health care is accelerating. But I think what we need to spend more time on is how to do this at a responsible way, where we don't just have ongoing 7% compounded growth rates. It used to be 12. You know, 7 is actually a positive, but that still is very difficult for individuals and employers to keep up with.

Diana: Well, now that you've sold your company, are you devoting more time to these big questions?

Stephen: We are. And one of the exciting reasons why we joined forces with Multiplan is it's a much, much larger sandbox for us. We can apply our technology into a much bigger space. And so we are looking to leverage, I mean, our expertise is in a field called optimization. And that's where you're trying to take data, large data sets, very complex models to define what is the best possible outcome, the best possible solution. And there may be a million variables and a million constraints, but you can solve some of these problems with optimization. I think we're certainly invested heavily in trying to make a difference for both government, employers, and ultimately, all the money is being spent by people, right? Whether it's tax dollars or whether it's employees who are funding these benefits and services. So, that's a passion of ours.

Diana: Awesome, looking forward to seeing what you all do next. Okay, so number two here: Do you see your technology helping providers improve outcomes and helping patients find providers with better outcomes? Oh, that's interesting. So picking and choosing the doctors based on outcomes.

Guy: Yeah.

Stephen: We are absolutely seeing it. The problem is you don't really know what a baseline is. So if you recover from your knee surgery in eight weeks and a baseline is six, most people don't have a perspective on that. So again, this is about getting information to consumers. If you know, based on the complexity of the surgery and your general health, what the expectation is, and you have a device that's tracking your progress and tracking your flexibility and can measure. And there are companies now that, with an iPad and some sensors, will measure your flexibility, measure every day as you're doing your physical therapy exercises will tell you how well you're performing against what the expectations are. So I think technology is making a difference in this space and we'll see more of that.

Diana: And Guy, I wanted to ask you a totally different question about the potential of AI.

Guy: Yeah.

Diana: Since your company is involved in that world, and clearly you've got a niche going with Healthee, but I mean, I wonder if you can speak to sort of more generally about the potential of AI and disrupting the healthcare space.

Guy: Yeah. So first of all, I think the healthcare space is, well more than ready for disruption, right? There's many, many places where we can disrupt using AI. I mean, always, when you think about AI, was it really just being better than a human? It's not just that, it's just doing much more complex stuff than any of us can even think about. So yes, definitely ready for disruption. I think it's back to what you mentioned on choosing providers, knowing doctors, outcomes. I don't think without AI we can actually understand what are the better outcomes. Like, who is providing better outcomes? Which doctors are providing better outcomes? So for me AI is, there's tons of way to go. I mean, yes, you're right, we're focusing more on the consumer side, more on the usage and accessibility. But there's a way to kind of improve every aspect of the healthcare journey using AI.

Diana: There's also dangers. Yeah? You want to talk about that for a sec?

Guy: I mean, obviously there's dangers if you're not using the right data, if you're not putting the right guide rails on AI, right? We, for example, do a very, very extensive QA process before we even meet a consumer on every plan that we kind of put into our platform. So, if you're just using AI, right, like the ChatGPT is out there a lot right now, right? If you're just using that and not providing the right data, providing the right guide rules and doing a lot of Q&A, yes, it's dangerous. Because think about if somebody gets a recommendation to go do a surgery where they shouldn't be doing surgery, they should be doing PT instead, that can happen, right, if we don't harness AI in the right way.

Diana: Right. Sort of opens you up to lawsuits at the very least. Do people have to sign a waiver before they use your technology? You don't have to answer that. It's fine. Okay. So, number three here. Will your technology cause medical providers to change the way medical care is provided?

Stephen: I think it already is. Yeah. Very similar to the way cameras on police officers has changed the way sometimes they'll behave, right, when they interact with people. I think doctors recognize now that their performance is being measured, that there's lots of data out there that is, as Guy said, quantifying the outcome. And the carriers we work with use that data against sometimes the provider when they're negotiating with them, that your outcomes are not as good as a provider. So we give the best reimbursements to this other provider. And so I think doctors just like most areas of society, there's more eyeballs with all this data flowing on performance.

Diana: So insurers will kick doctors out of their network if their outcomes are not…

Stephen: Absolutely.

Diana: Good?

Guy: But not only that, I think what will really make a difference is consumer behavior, because if we're going to see that a place will charge $4,000 for an MRI, but now that we know that, we know they charge $4,000 and we're just not going to go there, that's going to create the change that we're looking for, right?

That fact that it's still a thing where like, there's providers that are charging so much money on procedures that are costing much less in other places, for me, it's just crazy, right? And the more that we bring transparency to this world, the more the consumer behavior is going to change that. And that's just won't be okay, right? Like you can't charge so much money on something that you shouldn't.

Diana: Right. And if nothing else, we learned today that there are no luxury MRIs.

Guy: No, no luxury MRIs.

Diana: Well, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful conversation. I've really enjoyed it.