Health tech company Stellarus announced Thursday the launch of an artificial intelligence-driven copilot geared towards helping health plan customer service representatives.
The solution—dubbed Customer Service Representative (CSR) Chat—provides representatives with real-time guidance and contextual support during live interactions, surfacing relevant information, policy and recommended responses directly in workflows.
Stellarus president and CEO Vanessa Colella told Fierce Healthcare in an interview that “unsustainable healthcare costs” have been dominating conversations about the American healthcare system.
“It’s not about talking about someday it might not be working,” Colella said. “It is not working today. One of the places that it's not working is cost. And another place it's not working is member experience.”
The solution hopes to address both core issues through administrative burden reduction and allowing representatives and members “to have the conversation that matters,” according to Colella.
“There's nothing more frustrating when you're trying to figure something out about your health or the finances related to your health than having to re-explain a bunch of things,” Colella said. “So if we can, which we do, just surface that information to the representative, then the conversation that the representative can have with a member is very different and much richer.”
CSR Chat has seen 98.9% accuracy since its launch, according to Colella. “That combination of surfacing the data and information as the representative needs something within their workflow, and then getting fast and reliable answers is what really makes this sing,” she said.
More than 1,300 customer service representatives are currently using the capability, Colella said, also noting the behavior change from early feedback.
“It's not just the technology that matters,” Colella said. “You can put technology in front of anyone, but if behavior doesn't change and people aren't using it, then it's sort of like what happens when a tree falls in a forest…We see the usage continue to climb on a daily basis, and that's to me the real answer of whether or not customer service representatives are getting value out of this.”
CSR Chat is the first commercially available capability within the Stellarus Company Suite, according to the July 30 announcement. The AI-powered platform aims to help health plans deliver more personalized and intelligent responses for members and providers alike.
Stellarus plans to expand Compass with additional capabilities in the coming months, executives say.
Last week, the health tech company announced a strategic partnership with clinician-led AI platform Anterior. Its goal is to support providers through automating RCM tasks—such as case research and policy application—to allow teams to focus on complex determinations.
Through the partnership, Anterior’s clinical AI will integrate with Stellarus’s AtlasIQ platform to aid health plans in deploying quicker prior authorizations. All final determinations are made by licensed clinicians, not the AI tools.