No more surprises: How UCARE helps hospitals estimate patients’ bills more accurately

Sometimes, the worst part about being ill is not the illness itself.

It is being discharged from a hospital with a medical bill filled with unexpected charges here and there. Even with the existence of insurance, these surprises might provide an extra burden for patients, making their recovery process harder.

To solve this problem, Singapore-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup UCARE develops a platform that they named the AI-Powered Pre-Admission Cost of Hospitalisation Estimation (APACHEÔ) system.

Using AI and machine learning algorithms, APACHEÔ analyses various parameters specific to an individual patient to predict the patient’s bill size –from pre-admission until his eventual recovery.

The platform accounts for dynamically changing factors during the hospitalisation journey, such as disease aggravation, unexpected complications, or unplanned surgeries to generate personalised healthcare bills. That way, patients will be able to receive a more accurate prediction of how their bills will look like by the end of the treatment process, enabling them to make better preparation for their recovery.

Also Read: uCare raises Series A funding to bring its AI-powered predictive solutions into healthcare

UCARE says that its system has an 82 per cent accuracy rate on average.

Stealth mode

Founded in 2016, UCARE went through a period of being in stealth mode for two years, before resurfacing with an undisclosed Series A funding round in May 2018.

The funding round included big names such as global venture capital firm Walden International, local insurance company Great Eastern, philanthropist and investor Peter Lim as well as law firm WongPartnership’s startup initiative WPGrowth Ventures.

Prior to founding the startup, CTO and Founder Neal Liu had worked at various leading tech companies such as eBay, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google. Leaving Google in 2016 to start UCARE, Liu assembled a team of experienced data scientists and machine learning experts to build its proprietary real-time AI engine.

Liu holds an MBA from Wharton, University of Pennsylvania, and a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.

Meanwhile, UCARE CEO Christina Teo has 20 years of experience in the private equity field.

Also Read: Clik secures US$2M seed funding, soon to launch in Cambodia

Prior to serving as the CEO of uCare in 2016, she was the Director of Mint Media, Managing Director at L Capital Asia (LVMH), and held other senior investment positions at Affinity Equity Partners, Deutsche Bank’s Strategic Investments Group.

Teo holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BBA (Honours) from NUS Business School.

Hand-in-hand with partners

Earlier this month, UCARE announced a partnership with the private healthcare provider Parkway Pantai. Under the partnership, UCARE’s APACHEÔ system will enable four hospitals operated by the group to offer fixed prices for certain medical procedures.

Under Parkway Pantai’s Price Guarantee Programmes (PGP), patients will be guaranteed prices for six common medical procedures: Removal of piles, breast lumps, ovarian cysts, gallbladder, thyroid and tonsils. The scheme applies even when complications arise and require additional treatment for up to seven inpatient days.

“Core to our mission is the ability to help healthcare providers leverage AI to provide better patient experiences at every stage of the hospital journey,” says Liu in a press statement.

“Looking ahead, we will continue to roll out more AI systems and services to benefit patients globally,” he stresses.

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Image Credit: UCARE

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