What You Should Know
- The Launch: Baba, a new patient advocacy platform for older adults, has emerged from stealth with over $6.5M in seed funding led by General Catalyst.
- The Model: Baba embeds dedicated human advocates (nurses/social workers) into the care journey to handle “operational breakdowns” like insurance denials and scheduling. It pairs this with an AI companion for daily engagement—a hybrid model covered by Medicare and Medicare Advantage.
- The Backing: The startup is advised by renowned MIT economist Jon Gruber (architect of the ACA) and is launching a clinical study with Johns Hopkins to prove its impact on health outcomes.
Baba’s AI Model
For most older adults, the hardest part of healthcare isn’t the surgery or the prescription; it’s the logistics. It’s the unreturned phone call, the denied prior authorization, or the confusion over which specialist to see next. These “operational breakdowns” are where care plans go to die.
Baba’s model is distinct because it doesn’t try to replace human empathy with a chatbot. Instead, it uses a hybrid approach:
- The Advocates: Real nurses and social workers handle the complex friction points—fighting insurance claims, coordinating providers, and managing transitions of care.
- The AI Companion: A text-and-voice-based AI handles daily engagement, sending reminders and detecting early warning signals (like a missed medication) that trigger human intervention.
This tiered approach allows the platform to be scalable while still providing high-touch support for high-acuity patients.
