By Modupe Gbadeyanka
To enable faster and more frictionless medical claims, an underwriting firm, Prudential Plc, has partnered with Google to deploy the platform’s MedLM, typically used by healthcare organizations to build solutions for doctors, hospitals, and other medical providers to deliver better experiences for healthcare workers and patients.
The insurer is using generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve the accuracy and efficiency of medical insurance claim decisions.
With this, Prudential is the first insurance company in the world to use Google’s MedLM family of language models to simplify and summarise claim-related documents, including medical reports and invoices, for quicker approvals and payouts.
Starting in Singapore and Malaysia, Prudential will use MedLM to analyse documents submitted alongside health insurance claims, such as diagnostic reports, prescriptions and invoices.
MedLM supports human decision-making with its ability to extract relevant information and code it accurately for claims, helping to reduce the potential for errors caused by manual data entry, so claims can be processed faster and more accurately.
Prudential will apply MedLM to select medical insurance claims made in Singapore and Malaysia over a period of 3-4 months, then compare the AI’s analysis and advice to actual decisions using current approvals processes during this time.
Commenting on this, the chief executive of Health at Prudential, Mr Arjan Toor, said, “Prudential’s early tests with MedLM demonstrate that generative AI can play a major role in efficiently tackling the growing volume of health insurance claims, resulting in more frictionless processing and a faster turnaround time for customers.”
“We’re proud to pioneer this innovative approach to using MedLM to support our operational efficiency as we continue to expand our health insurance offering – while delivering our mission to be the most trusted health partner for customers in Asia and Africa,” he added.
He said further, “In a fragmented and often confusing healthcare landscape, data and AI are enabling us to provide care beyond coverage for our customers.
“Our strategic partnership with Google Cloud has given us a valuable first-mover advantage in adopting generative AI to improve the customer experience at an important moment of truth.
“This is just the first step in using generative AI to deliver seamless, digitally enabled healthcare experiences at every step of our customers’ health journey; from the point of diagnosis, through treatment, recovery and prevention.”
On his part, the Vice President of Google Cloud, Mr Karan Bajwa, said, “Prudential has taken a truly innovative approach by adapting MedLM’s advanced healthcare and medical-specific capabilities to one of its core business processes.
“This collaboration exemplifies how our strategic partnership with Prudential can empower its workforce to drive confident decision-making, improve the overall experience for policyholders, and create meaningful innovation in healthcare and finance.”