
Episodes
How Health Insurers Use Your Online Reviews of Doctors
In this episode, Lucas and Luna drill into a quietly powerful data point most patients don't think about: the online reviews you leave for doctors, clinics, and hospitals. Insurers are increasingly scraping platforms like RateMDs, Healthgrades, and Google Maps reviews to build predictive models of patient satisfaction, treatment adherence, and even the likelihood of filing malpractice claims. We trace how a single one-star review can affect a physician's tier ranking, reimbursement rates, and…
How Health Insurers Use Your Online Shopping History
Health insurers are quietly analyzing your e-commerce purchases to build health risk profiles. This episode explores how companies like Amazon and Walmart feed data into insurance algorithms, what that means for your premiums, and how regulators are responding. Lucas and Luna break down the mechanics of data sharing, the rise of predictive health scoring, and the growing push for transparency. Tune in for a concrete look at the hidden economy of consumer health data. #HealthInsurance…
Health Insurers Are Now Using Your Pharmacy Chatbot
In this episode of Services Economy with Fexingo, hosts Lucas and Luna explore a new frontier in health data: the pharmacy chatbot. As millions of Americans use AI-powered assistants to refill prescriptions, ask about side effects, and manage chronic conditions, those conversations are becoming valuable risk indicators for insurers. Lucas breaks down a recent study showing that sentiment analysis of chatbot interactions can predict medication adherence and even flag potential health…
How Health Insurers Are Using Your Wearable ECG Data
In this episode of Services Economy with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna examine how health insurers are starting to use wearable ECG data — like the single-lead heart rhythm recordings from smartwatches — to assess risk, set premiums, and even detect conditions you haven't mentioned to them. The hosts discuss a 2025 study that found insurers are increasingly requesting ECG data from popular smartwatch manufacturers, and the regulatory grey zone that allows them to do so without your explicit consent.…
Why Health Insurers Are Reading Your Chat History
In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into a growing practice in the U.S. health insurance industry: using artificial intelligence to screen customer service chat transcripts for signs of risky behavior. They explore how one major insurer uses natural language processing to flag phrases like 'I can't afford my medication' or 'I'm thinking about switching plans,' and how those flags can trigger changes in coverage offers, prior authorization requirements, or even a referral to a wellness program.…
Why Health Insurers Are Tracking Your Wearable Sleep Data
In this episode of Services Economy with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore a new frontier in health insurance data collection: wearable sleep trackers. They focus on a 2025 study from the Journal of Insurance Medicine that found 22% of US health insurers now use sleep data in underwriting, and that claims data showing poor sleep quality correlates with a 17% higher rate of chronic conditions. The hosts break down how insurers get this data through app partnerships and device manufacturers, the…
How Health Insurers Are Reading Your Grocery Delivery Apps
In this episode of Services Economy with Fexingo, hosts Lucas and Luna explore the growing practice of health insurers analyzing data from grocery delivery apps like Instacart. They dive into how these companies partner with data brokers to obtain purchase histories, which can reveal not just what you buy but also clues about your health, from sugary snacks to medication refills. Lucas explains the mechanics behind the data flow, the types of insights insurers might derive, and the regulatory…
The Price Tag on Your Health Data
Health insurers have been quietly using your digital footprint to set premiums and deny claims. In this episode, Lucas and Luna trace how a single medical claim can trigger a cascade of data checks — from your smartwatch steps to your grocery loyalty card history. They zero in on a 2025 California case where a patient's fitness tracker contradicted their claim of a back injury, leading to a denied surgery. The hosts break down the legal gray areas, the rise of 'risk scoring' algorithms, and…
Why Health Insurers Care About Your Online Dating Profile
Health insurers are increasingly turning to alternative data to predict risk, and your online dating profile is the latest frontier. This episode explores how dating app data—from your bio, photo, and browsing habits—can reveal health insights that insurers might use to adjust premiums or deny coverage. We break down a real case: an insurer's partnership with a data broker that analyzed dating app activity to identify risky behaviors. Lucas and Luna discuss the implications for privacy, the…
How Health Insurers Use Your Loyalty Programs
Episode 150 of Services Economy with Fexingo: Healthcare, Finance, and the Modern Service Sector. Health insurers have been mining grocery loyalty card data (episode 148), but what about the broader universe of loyalty programs? From coffee shop apps to airline frequent flyer miles, insurers are increasingly tapping into loyalty data to assess risk, adjust premiums, and even deny coverage. Hosts Lucas and Luna drill into a specific case: how a major insurer partnered with a national coffee…
How Health Insurers Use Your Fitness Club Membership Data
In this episode of Services Economy, Lucas and Luna dig into a corner of health insurance data collection that most people never think about: fitness club membership records. From gym check-ins to class bookings, insurers are using this data to build surprisingly detailed risk profiles. They discuss how a simple membership can reveal everything from your exercise habits to your commute, and what that means for your premiums. Along the way, they explore the trade-offs between personalized…
How Health Insurers Use Your Grocery Loyalty Card Data
Health insurers are quietly buying data from grocery loyalty programs to build risk profiles on policyholders. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how a simple loyalty card can reveal more about your health than a medical record — from soda purchases to nicotine patches. They walk through the mechanics of data aggregation, the companies that broker this information, and the surprising ways insurers use it to predict and price risk. They also discuss the regulatory gray zone: while HIPAA…
How Health Insurers Use Your DNA Test Results
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing promised health insights, but what happens to your data when you spit in that tube? In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how health insurers are increasingly using genetic data to inform underwriting and premium decisions. They break down the case of a woman denied coverage after a 23andMe test revealed a genetic marker for a rare condition, and examine the legal loopholes that allow insurers to access this sensitive information. They discuss the Genetic…
How Health Insurers Use Voice Analysis
In this episode of Services Economy, Lucas and Luna dive into the emerging practice of voice analysis in health insurance. They explore how insurers are starting to use voice biomarkers from telehealth calls, customer service interactions, and even smart speakers to assess health risks and detect conditions like depression or heart disease. The discussion covers the scientific basis, the accuracy concerns, the privacy implications, and the regulatory landscape. They reference real-world…
Health Insurers Are Mining Your Restaurant Reviews
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore a surprising new frontier in health insurance data collection: public restaurant reviews. They dive into how insurers are using natural language processing to analyze Yelp and Google reviews for signals about your lifestyle—think frequent mentions of fried food or late-night fast food runs—and how that data can influence your premiums or coverage decisions. With concrete examples and a look at the growing data brokerage industry, they discuss what this…
How Health Insurers Use Your Credit Card Rewards Data
In this episode of Services Economy with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore a surprising new frontier in health insurance data collection: your credit card rewards program. Insurers are increasingly purchasing anonymized purchase data from rewards programs to build detailed consumer profiles, then using that data to adjust premiums, deny claims, and influence wellness incentives. The hosts drill into a specific case: a major insurer that partnered with a leading credit card network to identify…
How Health Insurers Use Your Prescription History
In this episode of Services Economy, Lucas and Luna dig into a quietly powerful data source that health insurers have been using for years: your prescription history. They explore how pharmacy data, pulled from claims and pharmacy benefit managers, feeds into risk scores and underwriting decisions — often without a clear consent signal. The conversation walks through a concrete example: a patient whose antidepressant prescription history influenced a life insurance application, leading to a…
Why Health Insurers Care About Your Food Delivery History
In this episode of Services Economy with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna dig into the surprising ways health insurers are using your food delivery data to set premiums. They break down how a single DoorDash order of sushi or a late-night pizza can end up in a risk score, and why insurers think your burrito bowl says more about you than your annual physical. The hosts walk through real examples of what data gets collected, how it gets sold to data brokers, and what it means for your wallet. They also…
How Health Insurers Are Using Your Food Delivery History
This episode of Services Economy with Fexingo reveals how health insurers are accessing your DoorDash, Instacart, and other food delivery order histories to fine-tune premium adjustments and wellness program incentives. Lucas and Luna break down a 2025 Health Affairs study showing that major insurers now partner with data brokers to analyze nutrition habits, from late-night pizza orders to organic grocery purchases. They explore the consent loopholes in wellness app fine print, the role of…
How Health Insurers Are Analyzing Your Telehealth Video Sessions
In this episode of Services Economy with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna dive into the latest frontier of health insurer data mining: analyzing video recordings from telehealth consultations. With virtual visits now accounting for nearly 40% of outpatient care, insurers are using AI to examine facial expressions, tone of voice, background settings, and even eye movements to assess patient risk, adherence, and potential future claims. The hosts discuss a leaked pilot program from a major insurer that…
How Health Insurers Score Your Social Network and Friends Health Data
Episode 139 of Services Economy with Fexingo explores how health insurers are now analyzing your social connections – friends, family, and even coworkers – to predict your health risks. We examine a landmark study from the New England Journal of Medicine showing that obesity spreads through social ties, and how insurers are using data from social media, contact lists, and location tracking to build risk scores based on your network. Lucas and Luna discuss specific strategies insurers use…
How Health Insurers Score Your GPS Location History
Health insurers are increasingly buying location data from brokers to track your movements. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how insurers use GPS pings from your phone to infer health habits — from fast-food visits to gym attendance — and adjust premiums or even deny claims. They discuss a recent FTC action against a data broker that sold location data from millions of devices without consent, and what this means for consumer privacy. The hosts also examine whether insurers are…
How Health Insurers Are Scoring Your Streaming Video History
Episode 137 dives into the quietly growing practice of health insurers mining your video streaming history—from Netflix binges to late-night TikTok scrolls—to predict health risks. Lucas explains how data brokers aggregate smart TV and app usage data, then sell it to insurers for risk scoring, often without meaningful consent. The hosts discuss the economic implications: a booming data brokerage market, regulatory gaps, and the potential for a new kind of algorithmic underwriting. Specific…
How Health Insurers Are Mining Your Mental Health App Data
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how health insurers are partnering with mental wellness apps like Calm and Headspace to access user data — including meditation frequency, sleep scores, and mood logs — and using that information to adjust premiums and wellness incentives. Discover the hidden data flows behind your favorite mindfulness app and what it means for your privacy. #MentalHealthApps #HealthInsurance #DataPrivacy #WellnessApps #InsurerDataMining #ConsumerProtection #PrivacyRights…
How Health Insurers Are Scoring Your Bank Account Transactions
Episode 135 of Services Economy with Fexingo explores a new frontier in health insurance risk scoring: your bank account transactions. Lucas and Luna break down how major insurers are purchasing anonymized transaction-level data from financial aggregators to infer health risk—looking at patterns in spending on fast food, alcohol, gym memberships, and even pharmacy copays. They discuss the economic impact: lower-income individuals may face higher premiums due to spending patterns that correlate…
How Health Insurers Are Mining Your Travel Itineraries
This episode reveals how health insurers are purchasing travel data from airlines and hotel loyalty programs to assess policyholder risk. We discuss the specific data points being collected—flight destinations, trip frequency, even meal preferences—and how they're used to adjust premiums. A former data broker explains the valuation of travel data at $0.15 per record. Lucas and Luna explore the economics behind this practice and what it means for consumer privacy in the modern service economy.…
How Health Insurers Use Your Smart Home Data
Nearly one in seven health insurers now incorporate data from smart thermostats, voice assistants, and smart lights into their underwriting models. In this episode, Lucas and Luna examine a Consumer Federation of America report from early 2026, detailing how Oscar Health and other insurers offer premium discounts in exchange for access to home device patterns. They discuss the specific metrics used—like light-switch timing as a proxy for sleep quality—and the privacy loophole that lets insurers…
How Health Insurers Are Using Your Social Media Posts
A 2025 Consumer Federation of America study found that seven out of ten major health insurers now analyze social media posts to inform underwriting and claims decisions. We explore how algorithms score your public posts for lifestyle indicators, from fast-food check-ins to marathon photos, and what happens when that data is used against you. One Texas woman had her gym membership claim denied because a photo of her running a marathon suggested she didn't need the gym. We break down the data…
How Health Insurers Score Your Wearable Device Data
Your Apple Watch or Fitbit tracks every step, heartbeat, and hour of sleep—and your health insurer may be using that data to set your premiums. This episode of Services Economy with Fexingo explores how wellness programs that offer discounts for sharing step counts are increasingly used to raise rates on less active members. We look at the fine print in app consent forms, the predictive models insurers deploy, and the regulatory pushback from the FTC in 2025. John Hancock's controversial…
How Health Insurers Are Scoring Your Pet Insurance Claims
Episode 130 of Services Economy digs into a surprising new data pipeline: health insurers purchasing pet insurance claims data to infer lifestyle risks. Lucas explains how companies like UnitedHealth and Anthem have begun analyzing veterinary visits, prescription pet food purchases, and even dog breed information to adjust individual health premiums. He cites a 2025 study from the Journal of Health Economics showing that policyholders with claims for certain dog breeds had 22 percent higher…
Health Insurers Are Scoring Your Genetic Test Results
Episode 129 of Services Economy investigates a controversial practice: health insurers using consumer genetic test results from services like 23andMe and AncestryDNA to adjust coverage and premiums. Lucas opens with the story of a Colorado woman whose BRCA1 gene variant — discovered via a mail-in kit — led to a 40% rate hike. Luna asks why insurers are interested in data that consumers thought was private. The hosts walk through how the data flows from testing companies to data brokers to…
Health Insurers Are Analyzing Your Text Messages
Episode 128 of Services Economy with Fexingo uncovers how health insurers are now mining your SMS and messaging app data to assess risk and adjust premiums. Lucas and Luna walk through a specific case: a 2025 FTC complaint against a major insurer that used text analysis to flag keywords like 'stress' and 'headache' for premium increases. They discuss the data brokers supplying these insights, the legal loopholes under HIPAA, and what this means for consumer privacy. The hosts also tie the…
Insurers Are Mining Your Inbox Without Permission
Episode 127 of Services Economy with Fexingo: Lucas and Luna dig into a new frontier in health insurance data collection — email metadata. Insurers have started buying anonymized metadata from email providers and marketing firms to infer lifestyle habits, from sleep patterns to relationship status. The hosts walk through a concrete example: a 2025 study from the Journal of Health Economics found that insurers using email metadata predicted hospitalization risk 18% more accurately than…
How Health Insurers Use Your Gym Membership Data
Episode 126 of Services Economy with Fexingo dives into how health insurers are leveraging gym check-in data from chain fitness centers like Planet Fitness and Equinox to adjust premiums and nudge behavior. Lucas and Luna explore a specific case: a major insurer that offered up to 15% discounts for members who visited a gym at least 10 times per month, but also quietly raised rates for those who stopped showing up. They discuss the data brokers aggregating swipe-in records, the privacy…
How Health Insurers Are Monitoring Your Car Insurance Claims
Episode 125 of Services Economy with Fexingo uncovers a new frontier in health insurance data mining: your auto insurance claims. Lucas and Luna explain how insurers like UnitedHealth and Anthem are purchasing driving history data from companies like LexisNexis and Verisk to flag risky behaviors and adjust premiums. They discuss the legal loophole that allows this under the guise of consumer consent, and the broader trend of data sharing across insurance verticals. Tune in to understand how…
How Health Insurers Score Your Job History and Salary Data
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore a growing practice in the health insurance industry: using employment and income data to assess risk and set premiums. They focus on the case of a major insurer that partnered with a consumer credit bureau to pull job titles, tenure, and salary estimates from public and proprietary sources. The hosts discuss how these data points can predict health costs—for example, a construction worker may have higher injury risk, while a high-earning executive might…
How Insurers Are Scoring Your Voice Call Recordings
Episode 123 of Services Economy with Fexingo: Healthcare, Finance, and the Modern Service Sector. Lucas and Luna explore the controversial practice of health insurers analyzing voice recordings from customer service calls to score policyholders for emotional stability, honesty, and risk. They break down how companies like Canary Speech and Cogito use AI to detect vocal biomarkers — pitch, tone, pace, micro-tremors — to predict health outcomes. Lucas cites a 2025 study from the Journal of…
How Health Insurers Are Scoring Your Online Search History
Episode 122 of Services Economy digs into a quietly explosive practice: health insurers buying and analyzing your web search history to adjust premiums, deny claims, or flag 'risky' behavior. Lucas and Luna walk through a real 2025 case where a major carrier used a data broker's search-history scores to reclassify a customer's pre-existing condition. They break down how the scoring models work, what keywords trigger flags (think 'headache relief' versus 'migraine specialist'), and why this…
Your Medical Claims Data Is Secretly Grading Your Doctors
Episode 121 of Services Economy with Fexingo exposes a hidden layer in healthcare: insurers' use of your past medical claims data to assign performance 'grades' to individual physicians. Lucas and Luna walk through the mechanics — how a company named Pinnacle Quality Metrics provides 'physician performance profiles' based on billing codes, prescription patterns, and referral records. They discuss why a dermatologist in Ohio received a 2.6 out of 5 star rating from Anthem without ever knowing…
Why Health Insurers Are Tracking Your Grocery Receipts
Episode 120 of Services Economy with Fexingo dives into the quietly expanding practice of health insurers analyzing your grocery store purchases. Lucas reveals how one major carrier has partnered with a loyalty-data firm to score members based on items like sugary cereals, frozen dinners, and fresh produce. Luna pushes back on the accuracy and fairness of these scores, especially for low-income households in food deserts. The episode explores the specific data points being collected – from…
How Insurers Are Analyzing Your Voice Recordings
In this episode of Services Economy with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore health insurers' growing use of voice analysis technology. They dive into how companies like Optum and UnitedHealth are using speech patterns—tone, pitch, pacing—to infer mental health conditions, stress levels, and even cognitive decline. The discussion covers how customer service calls and digital assistant recordings are being scored, the accuracy of these models (citing a study from MIT showing 70-80% accuracy in…
How Health Insurers Score Your Food Delivery History
In this episode of Services Economy with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna dive into the latest frontier in health insurance data mining: your DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub order history. Experts estimate insurers are now analyzing over 200 million food delivery transactions per year to build risk profiles. Lucas explains how companies like Vitality and Oscar use machine learning models to score items like pizza, salads, and bubble tea, adjusting premiums or offering discounts based on predicted…
How Health Insurers Are Scoring Your Streamed Music Playlists
Episode 117 of Services Economy with Fexingo digs into a quietly growing data source for health insurers: your music streaming habits. Lucas and Luna explore how companies like Spotify and Apple Music share listening data with third-party brokers, and how insurers use playlists, listening times, and genre preferences to build behavioral risk scores. They cite a 2025 report from the Journal of Health Economics that found a 12% correlation between certain playlist patterns (high-energy workout…
How Health Insurers Score Your Dating App Data
Episode 116 of Services Economy digs into a frontier of health insurance data mining: dating app activity. Lucas and Luna examine how companies like Oscar Health and Cigna are reportedly scoring users' dating profile attributes, messaging frequency, and even rejection rates to infer health risks. They walk through a specific 2025 white paper from a data brokerage called Recondata that links dating app time spent to mental health claims. Luna pushes back on correlation vs. causation, and Lucas…
How Health Insurers Are Mining Your Prescription History
Most of us assume our health insurance company already knows what prescriptions we fill. But the reality goes much further. In this episode, Lucas and Luna unpack a little-known data pipeline that feeds insurers granular details from pharmacy benefit managers — not just the drug name and dosage, but the prescriber, the pharmacy location, the day-supply, and whether you picked it up on time. Using the 2026 consent decree between the Federal Trade Commission and the three largest PBMs — Express…
How Health Insurers Are Scoring Your Credit Card Purchase History
Health insurers are now analyzing granular credit card transaction data to build health risk profiles. Lucas and Luna break down how companies like Optum and Aetna access purchase history — from grocery spending to restaurant habits — and use machine learning to predict conditions like diabetes and hypertension before any clinical diagnosis. They discuss the legal gray area under HIPAA, the role of data brokers like Verisk, and what it means for consumers who pay with plastic. Specific case…
How Health Insurers Are Scoring Your Psychotherapy Notes
Episode 113 of Services Economy with Fexingo. Lucas and Luna reveal a new frontier in health insurance data mining: the content of psychotherapy sessions. With the rise of digital therapy platforms like Talkspace and BetterHelp, insurers are now using AI to analyze therapy transcripts, sentiment trends, and keyword frequencies to adjust premiums, deny claims, or flag 'risky' patients. Lucas walks through a specific case from a leaked 2025 underwriting algorithm that scored patients based on…
How Health Insurers Are Mining Your Gas Station Purchases
Episode 112 of Services Economy with Fexingo. Lucas and Luna explore how health insurers are using data from gas station loyalty cards and credit card transactions to assess risk. They break down a 2025 study from the University of Chicago showing that frequent purchases of energy drinks, candy, and cigarettes at gas stations correlate with higher claims. The hosts discuss how this data gets sold to insurers via third-party brokers like Verisk and Optum, and the regulatory gray area around it.…
How Health Insurers Score Your Social Media Comments
Episode 111 of Services Economy with Fexingo dives into the newest frontier of insurance data-mining: the content of social media comments. Lucas and Luna explore how insurers are using natural language processing to analyze public comments on platforms like Reddit, X, and Facebook to assess policyholder risk. They walk through a specific case: a diabetic patient whose Reddit posts about food cravings led to a premium increase. The hosts discuss the algorithms involved, the regulatory grey…
How Health Insurers Score Your Social Media Comments
Episode 110 of Services Economy with Fexingo. Lucas and Luna uncover a new frontier in health insurance data mining: the language you use in public social media comments. They explain how insurers are using natural language processing to score individuals based on sentiment, vocabulary, and even emoji usage, and what this means for premiums and privacy. The hosts discuss the specific findings from a 2025 study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon that showed comment sentiment on Reddit and Twitter…
Showing the latest 50 episodes. The full archive of 159 is on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and every major podcast app — or via the RSS feed above.