Health care — and how much it costs — is scary. But you’re not alone with this stuff, and knowledge is power. “An Arm and a Leg” is a podcast about these issues, and is co-produced by KFF Health News.
Meet Holden Karau: a San Francisco Bay Area software engineer who created an AI tool to help appeal insurance denials. Her project, , is a labor of love. It draws on her tech expertise and years of experience fighting health insurance: for gender-affirming care, for rehab after getting hit by a car, and even for her dog, Professor Timbit.
host Dan Weissmann talked with Karau about what it took to build the tool, how it works, and what she hopes comes next. Hey there– Let’s start with introductions. My name is Carolyn DeSimone, and I have a super cute dog.
His name is Professor Timbit. He’s a professor because he’s always researching something. My name is Holden Caro, and I’m trying to make health insurance suck a little bit less Carolyn and Holden are married, and I talked with them in September because listeners had been sending me links to a story in the San Francisco Standard, with the headline “‘Make your health insurance company cry’: One woman’s fight to turn the tables on insurers.
” That woman was Holden. She works in tech, and the story was about a tool she’d built, to help people fight health insurance: It writes appeal letters, using AI of course. She’s made it available at a web site, “fight health insurance dot com” I lose count .