Social health platform Pyx Health rolled out an AI-powered navigator to help guide members to resources and essential benefits in the wake of policy changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) puts into place new work requirements for Medicaid recipients, including proof of 80 hours of work, school or volunteering per month. It’s estimated that millions of Americans may lose their access to health insurance and food-related benefits as they lack the resources to understand and navigate the requirements and comply with them.
Pyx Health developed an AI-powered Continuous Activation Platform to ease digital access to health resources such as transportation to doctors’ appointments, food assistance and housing support. Members also can use the interactive, supportive tools to navigate complicated processes like fulfilling work requirements, which can help members retain eligibility for those programs, according to the company.
“As a result of the OBBBA, and the policy shifts that threaten to strip America’s most vulnerable groups of their benefits, we are proud to continue to advance our mission of addressing unmet social needs and closing gaps in care,” Cindy Jordan, CEO of Pyx Health, said in a statement. “Through our work with Medicaid and Medicare members, I’ve seen how much stress can come from the uncertainty of not knowing where your next meal is coming from, or whether you have health insurance. And as this stress grows, self-care behaviors can often fall by the wayside, leading to prolonged poor health that will continue to cost taxpayers and the healthcare system billions of dollars. That’s why now is a more important time than ever to offer support—and our Continuous Activation Platform is helping us expand and scale it to millions more.”
The company, which launched in 2017, developed a care navigation model to addresses nonmedical drivers of health like loneliness, transportation and housing. The Pyx Health platform combines human support and an interactive mobile app to offer personalized care coordination, resource navigation, empathy-led coaching for behavior change and self-reliance, and unlimited virtual support for members, according to the company. The services are provided by health insurance plans as a benefit to their members at no cost.
Pyx Health now serves more than 6 million covered lives, according to executives. In June, the company acquired food-as-engagement company FarmboxRx to build out its services to address food insecurity and strengthen its member engagement.
In tandem with the member-facing artificial intelligence navigation tool, the company also uses human-directed AI to analyze conversation patterns between its staff and health plan members to more quickly identify member needs and intervene with relevant social health resources and plan benefits.
“Pyx Health has always had tech at the forefront of its operations, but with this, we’ve never forgotten the importance of pairing our AI with human touch,” Brijesh Patel, head of innovation and AI at Pyx Health, said in a statement. “Our AI technology was engineered to operate in a tightly scoped, predefined structure to prevent the AI from drifting outside of intended use cases, making it a preferred solution for compliance and regulatory teams.”
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