How does iBlueButton identify my personal risk for a severe coronavirus illness – beyond the already published risk factors?

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has identified medical conditions and medications in various categories which place individuals at higher risk for severe Coronavirus illness. These include over thousands of diagnosis and medication codes among hundreds of thousands of codes used by healthcare professionals in medical records at hospital and doctor offices, VA and Military Health Services facilities, and when billing Medicare for their services. Some of these medical conditions or medications may not be easily identified or recalled by a patient or family caregiver.

With its new Coronavirus severe illness risk screening, iBlueButton uses advanced analytics running confidentially and securely on your mobile device to identify your personal risk of severe Coronavirus disease. iBlueButton screens your specific medical diagnoses and medications and immediately flags the conditions and/or medications that increase your risk for severe COVID-19 illness, the disease caused by this very infectious and potentially dangerous strain of coronavirus. If you have none of these conditions or medications but are over the age of 70, as per CDC guidance, iBlueButton will warn you that you are at risk for more severe COVID-19 illness.

You can immediately communicate your critical medical information with healthcare providers with the specifics they need for faster triage, diagnosis and care, right from the iBlueButton app on your phone or tablet. All your conditions, medications, allergies, medical history and more can help emergency room personnel, telehealth and other medical staff make informed decisions, quickly. For travel, work or other purposes, iBlueButton will let you display or share your vaccination record from trusted data sources.

Who can use iBlueButton?

Medicare Advantage plan members cannot fully benefit from these new warnings, because Medicare currently provides only medication data for these members. Those with access to their physicians’ health records via the Apple Health app can also get additional Health Records data through iBlueButton.

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Medicare Advantage plan members cannot benefit from these new warnings, because Medicare currently provides only medication data for these members. If you are an iPhone or iPad user, iBlueButton can pull additional information from your Apple Health App.

How does this help my loved ones and caregivers?

When seen in an urgent care center or emergency department or when calling a telehealth provider, your loved ones and caregivers will be asked to provide your critical medical information to first responders, triage nurses, and doctors.

The medical data in iBlueButton is reliable and trusted, removing the stress of urgently needing to provide accurate answers by your loved ones.

Where does my medical data come from and how is it kept private and secure?

Your medical data comes directly from your physician’s electronic medical records (community, VA or Military Health Services providers) or from Medicare which has a complete record of your medical diagnoses submitted by your doctors with billing claims.

No personal identifiable or other information is stored in the Cloud eliminating the risk of hacking, tampering with your data, or use of your data for commercial gain. The medical data in iBlueButton is stored only on your mobile device, securely encrypted, and controlled by you.

What does iBlueButton cost and where do I get it?

In this time of Public Health crisis, we have made the iBlueButton app free for use for 60 days and the app can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play. After 60 days, the app is $9.99 per year or 99 cents per month and the monthly subscription can be cancelled at any time.