Cigna and Express Scripts Introduce Amazon Alexa Voice Skills to Make Health Care More Personalized and Convenient for Customers

Cigna and Express Scripts have collaborated with Amazon Alexa to launch two voice skills to make health care more engaging, personalized and convenient for customers. The Cigna and Express Scripts Alexa skills will enable eligible customers to use voice technology to manage pharmacy prescriptions, engage in health improvement programs and track wellness incentives.

“In particular, we believe voice technology, like Alexa, can make it easy for people to stay on the right path by tracking the status of their mail order prescription, helping us further solve the costly and unhealthy problem of medication non-adherence.”

“With our industry-leading voice skills, we are meeting customers where they are – in their homes, in their cars – and making it simpler to create healthier habits and daily routines,” said Stephen Cassell, senior vice president of global brand and customer communications at Cigna.

The Express Scripts voice skill is available now to customers who use Express Scripts’ prescription home delivery services. Users can say, “Alexa, open Express Scripts” to check their prescription order status and set notifications for when orders are received, processed and shipped. By having maintenance medications shipped directly to the home, customers may benefit from lower costs, more privacy and convenience and improved medication adherence.

“With our new Express Scripts skill, we are trying to make it easier for people to make better informed health care decisions,” said Mark Bini, vice president of innovation and member experience, Express Scripts. “In particular, we believe voice technology, like Alexa, can make it easy for people to stay on the right path by tracking the status of their mail order prescription, helping us further solve the costly and unhealthy problem of medication non-adherence.”

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Cigna is piloting “Cigna Health Today,” a unique voice skill aimed at increasing proactive health engagement with one of Cigna’s national clients. Eligible employees can opt-in to track personalized wellness incentives, including redeemable gift dollars, which are used to reward healthy behaviors. They can also receive daily motivational health and well-being tips. Beginning today, users can simply say, “Alexa, open Cigna Health Today” to use the new skill to learn about their individual incentives and continue earning rewards.

Incentive programs are proven to drive positive health outcomes. In a Cigna study of more than 200,000 customers over three years, health incentives more than doubled the probability of someone setting and meeting their own health improvement goals. In 2018 alone, Cigna distributed more than $255 million in cost savings back to customers for completing more than 4.5 million health goals – a 36 percent increase over the 2017 distribution amount.

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“Through our Amazon Alexa skill, customers can simply use voice to understand the full range of their health benefits and receive personalized wellness incentives for meeting their health goals, empowering them to take control of their total health,” said Cassell.

These two new Amazon Alexa skills advance Cigna and Express Scripts’ overall voice capabilities. Cigna launched an Amazon Alexa skill aimed at simplifying health information in March 2018. The “Answers by Cigna” skill provides simple answers to more than 250 of the most commonly-asked health care questions, and was recently expanded to include Medicare-related terms.

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