WebMD Provider Services Partners With Patient Communications Leader Artera to Improve Access and Engagement for Patient Education and Medication Affordability Programs

New York, NY – December 7, 2022 – WebMD Provider Services today announced a partnership with SaaS patient communications leader Artera™ (formerly WELL Health) to improve access and engagement to patient education materials and medication affordability programs.

The companies’ joint capabilities will help providers improve clinical outcomes and ongoing patient engagement, as well as aim to reduce the cost of care. Patient education significantly improves patient adherence, according to an American Journal of Medicine¹ study, while real-time messaging has proven effective in engaging patients with 98 percent of patients liking text messages² and more than 95 percent feeling more connected to their care team³. 

The partnership draws upon each company’s prowess in digital health to extend patient-provider connectivity beyond the point of care. The partnership combines WebMD Provider Services’ industry-leading patient education, care plan adherence and medication affordability programs with the Artera patient communications platform that enables conversations between patients and their healthcare provider through secure, multilingual real-time messaging. Medication cost savings available through WebMD RX further improve adherence, resulting in improved health outcomes. 

“The benefits of effective education in improving health outcomes is undeniable, yet gaps in communication – usually pre- and post-appointment – often leave patients without information at key points in their journey,” said Ann Bilyew, SVP, Health and Group GM, WebMD Provider Services. “Artera’s platform is a highly effective means for reaching individuals with relevant and appropriate education from WebMD. Together, we are closing that gap to ensure providers can present patients with the most relevant information, based on the point in their care journey.”  

Organizations using Artera as their patient communication platform will be able to deliver WebMD Provider Services’ expansive patient education and resources through their existing communication channels. This will empower healthcare providers to engage patients throughout their care journey using conversational messaging in a patient’s preferred language (with more than 100+ languages available). Artera’s conversational platform has the ability to automate thousands of messages between patients and providers, and gracefully hands off to staff for dynamic messaging when human intervention is required.

SMS/texting is a preferred, convenient communications channel:

• 98 percent of adults in the U.S. own a mobile phone⁴
• 95 percent of text messages are read⁵

“Artera’s platform delivers messaging integrated with the EHR, patient portals and heath systems’ tech stack. We help digital health partners, like WebMD Provider Services, deliver convenient access to up-to-date patient education, on the patient’s terms and timeline,” said Guillaume de Zwirek, CEO and Founder, Artera (formerly WELL Health).   

Preferred provider and patient education

• WebMD Provider Services has reached 2.7 million unique patients via its Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) integration into Electronic Health Record (EHR) platforms, powered by Krames.⁶  
• 91% of survey respondents said they took steps to improve their health as a result of WebMD Provider Services’ video education.⁷

Organizations interested in learning more about the integrated offering can contact their WebMD Provider Services or Artera representative or visit https://artera.io/webmd/ to connect with the team. 

About WebMD Provider Services:

WebMD Provider Services, a division of WebMD and Internet Brands, partners with healthcare organizations to deliver a better patient experience—from Discovery to Recovery. WebMD Provider Services helps our partners build deeper, enduring relationships with consumers and physicians through personalized engagement, resulting in better patient/member outcomes, sustained improvements in brand reputation, measurable gains in market share and increased revenue. Our customers benefit from the expertise and insights of a portfolio of the leading brands in the industry—including WebMD, Medscape, Krames, PulsePoint, Vitals, The Wellness Network, and Mercury Healthcare—to tailor enterprise-wide solutions that transform the patient experience. 

About Artera (formerly WELL Health)

Artera is the SaaS digital health leader in patient communications and two-time Best in KLAS winner in Patient Outreach. Artera delivers a platform-level patient communications solution that integrates across a health system’s tech stack (EHRs/EMRs, single-point solutions, apps, and more) to deliver patients a simple, cohesive communications experience while reducing workload for healthcare staff. By unifying disjointed communications and information into a single channel for patients (texting, email and/or IVR) Artera fuels healthcare providers to deliver healthier patients, more efficient staff and more profitable organizations. The Artera platform helps 500+ unique health systems facilitate 1.1 billion messages for 40+ million patients. 

Founded in 2015, Artera (formerly WELL Health) is based in Santa Barbara, California and has been named on the 2021 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and ranked on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies for three consecutive years. For more information, visit www.artera.io. 

• (1) American Journal of Medicine, Approaches to Patient Education, 2006
• (2 and 3) Journal of the AAOS, Evaluating the Utility of Using Text Messages to Communicate With Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic, 2021
• (4 & 5) SMS Comparison, Sept. 18, 2022,  https://www.smscomparison.com/mass-text-messaging/2022-statistics/ 
• (6) Internal WebMD Provider Services data
• (7) 2020 Predict Health survey data