Medical Chatbots Use Cases, Examples and Case Studies of Generative Conversational AI in Medicine and Health

Herbie can also help patients with the tedious task of submitting claims to healthcare insurance companies. Healthcare insurance claims are complicated, stressful, and not something patients want to deal with, especially if they are in the middle of a health crisis. Using an AI chatbot for health insurance claims can help alleviate the stress of submitting a claim and improve the overall satisfaction of patients with your clinic. The patient can decide what level of therapies and medications are required using an interactive bot and the data it provides.

Further refinements and testing for the accuracy of algorithms are required before clinical implementation [71]. This area holds tremendous potential, as an estimated ≥50% of all patients with cancer have used radiotherapy during the course of their treatment. Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of transforming numerous aspects of our lives by modifying the way we analyze information and improving decision-making through problem solving, reasoning, and learning. Machine learning (ML) is a subset of AI that improves its performance based on the data provided to a generic algorithm from experience rather than defining rules in traditional approaches [1]. Advancements in ML have provided benefits in terms of accuracy, decision-making, quick processing, cost-effectiveness, and handling of complex data [2].

Instant access to critical information

Chatbots’ robustness of integrating and learning from large clinical data sets, along with its ability to seamlessly communicate with users, contributes to its widespread integration in various health care components. Given the current status and challenges of cancer care, chatbots will likely be a key player in this field’s continual improvement. More specifically, they hold promise in addressing the triple aim of health care by improving the quality of care, bettering the health of populations, and reducing the burden or cost of our health care system. Beyond cancer care, there is an increasing number of creative ways in which chatbots could be applicable to health care.

Then you’ll be interested in the fact that chatbots can help you reduce cart abandonment, delight your shoppers with product recommendations, and generate more leads for your marketing campaigns. Naturally, just like any other technology, chatbots come with their shortcomings and disadvantages. There’s no denying that artificial intelligence is making an impact in healthcare.

Difference Between Chatbot & Conversational AI

Privacy threats may break the trust that is essential to the therapeutic physician–patient relationship and inhibit open communication of relevant clinical information for proper diagnosis and treatment [96]. Healthcare chatbots are not only reasonable solutions for your patients but your doctors as well. Imagine how many more patients you can connect with if you save time and effort by automating responses to repetitive questions of patients and basic activities like appointment scheduling or providing health facts. Many chatbots are also equipped with natural language processing (NLP) technology, meaning that through careful conversation design, they can understand a range of questions and process healthcare-related queries. They then generate an answer using language that the user is most likely to understand, allowing users to have a smooth, natural-sounding interaction with the bot. Today, chatbots offer diagnosis of symptoms, mental healthcare consultation, nutrition facts and tracking, and more.

Involvement in the primary care domain was defined as healthbots containing symptom assessment, primary prevention, and other health-promoting measures. Additionally, focus areas including anesthesiology, cancer, cardiology, dermatology, endocrinology, genetics, medical claims, neurology, nutrition, pathology, and sexual health were assessed. As apps could fall within one or both of the major domains and/or be included healthcare chatbot use cases in multiple focus areas, each individual domain and focus area was assigned a numerical value. While there were 78 apps in the review, accounting for the multiple categorizations, this multi-select characterization yielded a total of 83 (55%) counts for one or more of the focus areas. To facilitate this assessment, we develop and present an evaluative framework that classifies the key characteristics of healthbots.

Medical chatbots are AI-powered conversational solutions that help patients, insurance companies, and healthcare providers easily connect with each other. These bots can also play a critical role in making relevant healthcare information accessible to the right stakeholders, at the right time. One response to these issues involved the deployment of chatbots as a scalable, easy to use, quick to deploy, social-distanced solution. Chatbots are algorithms that interact with users using natural language, either text or voice,4,5 with their distinguishing feature being natural language conversational interactions. Given the use of chatbots in a variety of settings prior to Covid-19, the existing infrastructure and abundance of prebuilt modules resulted in their rapid development and deployment to address Covid-19 needs.

The insights we’ll share in this post come directly from our experience in healthcare software development and reflect our knowledge of the algorithms commonly used in chatbots. This chatbot is a prime example of how to efficiently guide users through the sales funnel engagingly and effectively. Moreover, chatbots may also detect suspected fraud, probe the client for further proof or paperwork, and escalate the situation to the appropriate management. Submitting a claim, known as the First Notice of Loss (FNOL), requires the policyholder to complete a form and provide supporting documents. This can be made easier by using a chatbot that engages in a conversation with the policyholder, collecting the necessary information and requesting documents to streamline the claim filing process. Claims processing is usually a protracted process with a large window for human error and delays which can be eliminated at each stage.

Proactive healthcare and early diagnosis:

From collecting patient information to taking into account their history and recording their symptoms, data is essential. It provides a comprehensive overview of the patient before proceeding with the treatment. Zydus Hospitals, which is one of the biggest hospital chains in India and our customer did exactly the same. They used our multilingual chatbot for appointment scheduling to increase their overall appointments and revenue.

Motivational interview–based chatbots have been proposed with promising results, where a significant number of patients showed an increase in their confidence and readiness to quit smoking after 1 week [92]. No studies have been found to assess the effectiveness of chatbots for smoking cessation in terms of ethnic, racial, geographic, or socioeconomic status differences. Creating chatbots with prespecified answers is simple; however, the problem becomes more complex when answers are open. Bella, one of the most advanced text-based chatbots on the market advertised as a coach for adults, gets stuck when responses are not prompted [51]. Given all the uncertainties, chatbots hold potential for those looking to quit smoking, as they prove to be more acceptable for users when dealing with stigmatized health issues compared with general practitioners [7].

When envisioning the future, automation, and conversational AI-powered chatbots definitely pave the way for seamless healthcare assistance. Patients might need help to identify symptoms, schedule critical appointments and so on. Patients might need help to identify symptoms, schedule critical appointments, and so on. AI chatbots in the healthcare sector can be leveraged to collect, store, and maintain patient data. This can be recalled whenever necessary to help healthcare practitioners keep track of patient health, and understand a patient’s medical history, prescriptions, tests ordered, and so much more. Healthcare chatbots can locate nearby medical services or where to go for a certain type of care.

• This highlights a potential tension between privacy and functionality, and balancing these could benefit use cases where follow-up or proactive contact may be useful.
• It eliminates the need for hospital administrators to do the same manually over a call.
• Sign-up forms are usually ignored, and many visitors say that they ruin the overall website experience.
• Artificial intelligence is an umbrella term used to describe the application of machine learning algorithms, statistical analysis, and other cognitive technologies in medical settings.

The chatbot called Aiden is designed to impart CPR and First Aid knowledge using easily digestible, concise text messages. Doctors can receive regular automatic updates on the symptoms of their patients’ chronic conditions. Livongo streamlines diabetes management through rapid assessments and unlimited access to testing strips.

Enhancing customer service

The insurance chatbot market has been growing rapidly in recent years, driven by the increase in demand for digital solutions and the need for efficient customer service. Furthermore, insurance companies are using chatbots to handle a range of tasks, from answering basic queries to guiding customers through the claims process. For instance, GEICO launched a virtual assistant, Kate, which is designed to help customers with various insurance-related tasks. Some instances include accessing policy information, getting answers to frequently asked questions, and changing their coverage. Kate’s ability to provide instant assistance has enhanced GEICO’s customer service and reduced the need for customers to call or email support teams for basic inquiries.

With their increasing adoption and advancements in AI technologies, chatbots are poised to play an even more critical role in shaping the future of customer engagement and service delivery. Embracing chatbots today means staying ahead of the curve and unlocking new opportunities for growth and success in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Chatbots are computer programs designed to interact with users through conversational interfaces. They are versatile tools applicable to various industries and business functions, such as customer service, sales, marketing, and internal process automation.

This system also informs the user of the composition and prescribed use of medications to help select the best course of action. The diagnosis and course of treatment for cancer are complex, so a more realistic system would be a chatbot used to connect users with appropriate specialists or resources. A text-to-text chatbot by Divya et al [32] engages patients regarding their medical symptoms to provide a personalized diagnosis and connects the user with the appropriate physician if major diseases are detected. Rarhi et al [33] proposed a similar design that provides a diagnosis based on symptoms, measures the seriousness, and connects users with a physician if needed [33].

The idea of a digital personal assistant is tempting, but a healthcare chatbot goes a mile beyond that. From patient care to intelligent use of finances, its benefits are wide-ranging and make it a top priority in the Healthcare industry. The final use case, proactive monitoring (3 cases), involves proactively monitoring at-risk populations, such as the elderly,28–31 by checking whether users are experiencing symptoms or have been exposed to the virus. Unlike disease surveillance chatbots where the user initiates the interaction, these chatbots initiate contact with the users and ask questions about symptoms. By using NLP technology, medical chatbots can identify healthcare-related keywords in sentences and return useful advice for the patient.

While many organizations in the healthcare domain are bullish on the potential of conversational AI, its widespread adoption still remains hurdled by multiple challenges. It’s obvious that if you don’t know about some of the features that the chatbot provides, you won’t be able to use them. But you would be surprised by the number of businesses that use only the primary features of their chatbot because they don’t know any better.