United StatesHealthcare and life sciences2016 – ongoingHumana
Watson voice agent for provider calls
Humana’s voice agent handled 7,000+ provider calls a business day at about a third of the previous cost
Problem
Humana received more than one million calls a month from healthcare providers. More than 60% were routine questions before care, but the old phone menu sent too many calls to staff.
Approach
Humana began working with IBM Watson in 2016 and ran a three-month proof of concept. It built a Watson voice assistant to answer questions about eligibility, benefits, claims and authorizations. The assistant began taking live calls in April 2019.
Results
Takeaway
Routine calls from healthcare providers gave Humana a large volume of similar questions to automate. Development began in 2016, and live service followed in April 2019.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Healthcare and life sciences
- Business function
- Customer serviceProduction and quality
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Conversational and voice AI
- Adoption
- Co-developed with a partner
- Evidence
- Vendor's case study
Sources
Source summaries
IBM reported that Humana began work with Watson in 2016 and put its voice assistant into service in April 2019. The assistant handled 7,000+ calls per business day from 120 providers. IBM put the cost per inquiry at about one-third of the previous system’s cost.
Full details are in the original sources.
