WellAI’s Health Cost Savings Calculator – The Elaborate Symptom Checker

This is part 5 of the series on the WellAI’s health cost savings calculator for CEOs, CFOs and heads of HR.  Today we will very briefly explain how cost savings from an elaborate symptom checker calculated.

We have addressed skepticism about symptom checkers in our blog ‘The Truth About Digital Symptom Checkers No One Would Tell You’.  Despite the drawbacks, symptom checkers could be useful and often critical in addressing some of the current fears of visiting doctor’s offices.  According to a recent survey, 71% (!) of Americans are fearful of visiting a doctor due to the pandemic.  At WellAI, we believe the next gen symptom checkers based on forward looking scientific medical data could eliminate people’s fears, reduce anxiety, and decrease the number GP and ER visits.

Based on our conservative assumptions mentioned in another blog “WellAI’s Health Cost Savings Calculator – It Is Critical to Use Conservative Assumptions!”, namely the participation rate for the WellAI estimated elaborate symptom checker of 43.4%, the GP visit reduction by 14% and the ER visit reduction by 18%, we can calculate saving to total health spending from employee utilization of the WellAI elaborate symptom checker.  For this calculation, we also need an estimate of a portion of total health care spending from the GP visits and a portion of total health care spending from the ER visits.  Based on the June 2020 study by Goetzel et al in the American Journal of Health Promotion, they are 47.7% and 8.4%, respectively.

Hence, the health cost savings from fewer GP visits are estimated at 3.7% (= 0.18 x 0.477 x 0.434).  The health cost savings from fewer ER visits are estimated at 0.5% (= 0.14 x 0.084 x 0.434).  Leading world data scientists, including the ones at WellAI, are working to get these numbers to more realistic health cost savings of 25% (= 0.7 x 0.477 x 0.75) and 4.2% (= 0.66 x 0.084 x 0.75) from fewer doctor’s office visits and fewer ER visits, respectively.  Notice that the AI technology, including digital symptom checkers, is far more effective in reducing routine doctor’s office visits than in reducing the ER visits, partly, of course, because people use ER visits far less often.

All in all, depending on employees demographics of a particular company, number of people with chronic diseases, participation rate, and the type of insurance plan, among many other factors, the WellAI Health Cost Savings Calculator predicts 34% to 45% savings in an employer health costs.  These savings are sourced from 5 factors:

• WellAI’s chronic disease management program
• WellAI’s elaborate symptom checker (akin to Amazon’s Alexa, but specifically for health)
• WellAI’s Data-Driven Telehealth 2.0 – in comparison with traditional symptom checkers
• Reduction in absenteeism costs
• Reduction in presenteeism

As a reminder, the basic version of WellAI app is now available for free on your smartphone.  Please use the following links to schedule a 1-on-1 demo:

• If you are an employer and would like a cool benefit that makes your employees healthier and happier, and saves 34% to 45% on your healthcare costs, please schedule a virtual meeting here.
• If you are a potential investor who would like to be part of a unique once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity that will forever revolutionize healthcare, please schedule a virtual meeting here.
• If you are a potential customer, a patient or you are just curious about any of the WellAI high tech products – ‘Health Alexa’, VideoMedix next gen telehealth, or the scientific chronic disease management program – please schedule a virtual meeting here.

Please follow WellAI on LinkedIn,  Twitter,  Facebook,  Instagram,  Telegram  and  YouTube for news and updates!