Earlier this year, UnitedHealthcare unveiled Avery, a generative AI companion aimed at supporting care coordination for its members.
At the time, the tool was available to about 6.5 million of its members in employer plans and 160,000 people enrolled in Medicare Advantage. Now, the insurer is expanding access to 21 million of its members, growing the tool's reach at a faster clip than was initially expected.
To date, the company has found that Avery has resolved 90% of its member interactions, and in the remaining 10% of cases, can complete a handoff to a human advocate to offer member support.
"As we're seeing some of the statistics and some of the feedback that we're getting from users around the success we've had within the early phases of Avery, it's just making sense to open up that application into more and more of the population," Craig Kurtzweil, chief data and analytics officer at UnitedHealthcare, told Fierce Healthcare.
He said that a key piece of what makes Avery work is that it's built on "ground truth systems" that create a critical data foundation for the platform as it sits on top of the data available through UnitedHealthcare. With that data layer powering Avery's interactions, members get better answers, Kurtzweil said.
That accuracy is critical to helping members build trust with the tool and use it most effectively. Avery can provide key details on deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums, provider networks, pricing and claims processing, Kurtzweil said.
"Making this as accurate as possible is a big piece of gaining that trust with the consumers," he said.
Avery also fits into an ecosystem where UnitedHealthcare is making a push to put more information in its members' hands. Plan designs like Surest, which offer variable copayments, give members power to choose the providers and care that works best for them and their wallets.
With Avery, members can then have an easier time navigating the experience and understanding their options, Kurtzweil said.
The team is also building out additional functionality for Avery, including an option for it to call providers and schedule appointments on the member's behalf. Smoothing out that process can eliminate yet another friction point that can prevent people from seeking the care that they need.
Kurtzweil said that UnitedHealthcare also intends to continue building out access to Avery across its membership, with the intention to ultimately ensure that all of its enrollees can tap into the tool.
"More and more people will be impacted by this," he said, "where we're going to start to reduce that friction and make life easier for those consumers."