Cory Warner, global head of growth and operations at Uber Health
Photo courtesy of Uber Health
LOS ANGELES – Cory Warner, Uber Health's global head of growth and operations, sat down with MobiHealthNews for an in-person interview to discuss the ride sharing company's new feature that allows patients to self-book rides through the Uber app while still using transportation benefits funded by healthcare organizations.
MobiHealthNews: Uber Health recently announced a self-booking feature. Can you tell our readers more about that?
Cory Warner: Yeah, it's really exciting. I don't know how familiar your audience is with Uber health, but most people think of Uber as the app that they can move out and go to the side of the road and request a trip within 10 minutes and get to where they need to be. Uber health leverages that same on-demand network, but taps into it from either a HIPAA-based web portal or API solution that integrates right into their own care setting that allows them to book a ride for someone who may not even have the Uber app. So, I think that context is important because this innovation kind of flips that script a bit.
What we heard from our customers over time is that while there's still a number of patients and members that they serve that don't have the Uber app and may need to have a ride booked on their behalf, they have a number that may have the autonomy and ability and desire to control their own trip, but still provide the transportation through the funded sources that the organization has. So it's a self-booking solution.
So, the organization controls the parameters. They can set per trip limits, the location of the pickup restrictions. They can set parameters around the time of day, day of week, so that they make sure that they actually fulfill their care plan and actually go to where they're allowed to go, if they're thinking about reduction of fraud, waste and abuse, and all of the parameters that they're managing to oversee a program so their rider doesn't have to worry about all those different stipulations. They can go into the app and make sure that their ride is following the alignment to the care plan and get to where they need to be funded completely by the organization.
MHN: Why did Uber make its way into healthcare?
Warner: So, we've been in the healthcare space for over eight years. We have 4,000 plus customers at this point. So, it's been a tried and true solution that we've seen provide value to organizations. When you think about healthcare, it's not only the clinical side, but there's also the social aspect of care, and missed medical appointments cost the U.S. healthcare system billions of dollars every year.
And so as transportation has evolved, it's used to be a pen and paper manage industry, receipts, reimbursed one by one. It is ripe for some technology and advancement. And so we found a sweet spot in being able to provide that on-demand supply.
MHN: What's next for Uber Health?
Warner: So, when we think about the evolution of Uber Health, really people ask about the U.S. and where we're live today, and expansion across a number of new states, but there's also a larger network that we have access to throughout the entire globe.
Uber is an international company, and so the challenge of meeting medical appointments and getting to where someone needs to be is a global challenge. And so we are launching in a number of countries in Europe and really focused on providing access to care in many different markets.
