Helper Bees has launched a versatile advantages card referred to as useful, which supplies entry to over-the-counter merchandise, groceries and a nationwide community of verified Social Determinants of Well being (SDoH) suppliers by way of a unified card expertise.

Austin, Texas-based Helper Bees is the developer of a senior care platform that connects households with providers in and round their properties. The corporate’s expertise supplies the infrastructure for payers to entry, deploy, and scale providers. It has partnerships with most insurance coverage corporations and well being plans nationwide.

The handy card works like a pay as you go debit card. Payers can load cash onto the cardboard for eligible services and products. The cardboard has a number of digital wallets for various functions, corresponding to shopping for OTC merchandise, paying for house providers, making in-store purchases, overlaying healthcare prices, paying for utilities, and overlaying fitness center memberships. This ensures that members have a clean and full expertise.

“Traditionally, flex playing cards have been good for merchandise, not providers,” Andy Friedell, COO of The Helper Bees, advised Dwelling Well being Care Information. “That’s as a result of providers sometimes must be delivered over a licensed community. With Helper Bees, our whole enterprise mannequin is constructed round a licensed community of non-medical SDoH service suppliers. We’re on this distinctive place the place we will supply a card that has each a retail community and a licensed community of non-medical SDoH service suppliers.”

Friedell gave an instance of a member who may use a flex card to buy a seize bar for his or her lavatory. Nevertheless, if they’re a senior and have it shipped to them, it’s ineffective except they’ve somebody to put in it.

“In our world, now you can use the helpful card to purchase a bracket and have a licensed, inspected skilled set up it in your lavatory,” Friedell stated. “You get entry to a grocery low cost and also you additionally get a trip to the shop. It's actually a strategy to combine and match services and products.”

In accordance with Friedell, useful differentiates itself from conventional versatile spending playing cards by way of its distinctive means to supply members comfort and selection in a single multi-functional card. It supplies entry to greater than 60,000 stores, together with main pharmacy and grocery store chains, and covers out-of-pocket dental, imaginative and prescient and listening to care bills. Moreover, useful connects members to The Helper Bees nationwide community of greater than 20,000 vetted house care suppliers.

The Helper Bees has chosen Boston-based Lynx as its card supplier. Along with the flex card, the partnership provides an built-in e-commerce expertise, with a variety of services and products on one platform.

Lynx’s platform connects to an utility programming interface (API) for healthcare funds, banking and e-commerce. It permits companies to combine adaptive monetary expertise options for improved affordability, elevated healthcare engagement and enhanced monetary safety.

“Partnering with The Helper Bees to introduce the handy card is a testomony to our dedication to modernizing the supplemental advantages area and simplifying the member expertise,” Lynx CEO Matthew Renfro stated in an announcement. “As these advantages and providers turn out to be more and more necessary in Medicare Benefit, this partnership will present extra seamless and environment friendly entry.”

The cardboard’s flexibility permits for efficient allocation of funds, maximizing utilization with out further charges. Members have entry to quite a lot of choices, whereas payers can customise selections to satisfy particular plan necessities and price range constraints.

Helper Bees is open to all of The Helper Bees' payer companions, together with Medicare Benefit plans, Medicaid managed care organizations, long-term care insurers, and different companions.

“The expansion of those supplemental advantages is predicated on the assumption that non-medical providers assist maintain members more healthy and extra impartial at house,” Friedell stated. “However once they're not mixed with totally different suppliers and totally different cost fashions, they begin to lose their worth. By merging them into one unified expertise, a plan [such as Medicare Advantage] can start to leverage the {dollars} they spend on these non-medical SDoH providers to impression well being care and maintain individuals wholesome and impartial of their properties longer.”