Frequently asked questions
Get the answers to common questions about Koda’s serious illness planning solutions for payors, providers, and patients.
Solutions
Koda is a digital infrastructure platform that guides patients through serious illness care planning — capturing their preferences, completing legally valid directives, and embedding them directly into Epic, Cerner, Athena and other major EHRs. Unlike paper-based approaches, Koda achieves 80–85% completion rates across diverse populations.
Ella is Koda’s AI voice agent built to have real goals-of-care conversations over the phone, day or night. She handles inbound calls, answers patient questions about advance care planning, and documents preferences directly into the patient’s record, all without a patient ever needing to wait for office hours or a callback.
Koda’s predictive models decide who needs outreach and when, and that outreach goes out across SMS, email, and voice, with Ella handling the conversations that come back in. When a patient needs more than Ella can offer, whether that’s a harder emotional conversation or a decision that calls for a human ear, she hands off to a KodaCares patient advocate who already has the full history in front of them.
More than half of patients who are ready to engage in advance care planning still want to talk to an actual person for the hardest parts, like CPR preferences or a hospice decision. Ella isn’t built to replace that conversation. She’s built to get patients to the point of readiness for it, faster and with less friction than a form ever could.
Ella runs on Koda’s LLM Core, fine-tuned on real advance care planning conversations and support scripts collected over years of patient interactions, not generic call-center training data. That means she can hold a genuine conversation about a patient’s goals and values, not just walk through a checklist.
Koda’s Kidney Action Planning (KAP) is a specialized solution for CKD patients. It identifies patients by stage and risk level, walks them through their diagnosis and treatment options (including dialysis modalities, transplant, and conservative care), and documents their preferences in the EMR before decisions become urgent. Unplanned dialysis starts cost $95K per patient vs. $25K for planned starts — KAP is designed to close that gap.
Koda Cares is a team of trained clinical advocates who support patients with complex cases. When Koda identifies that a patient needs deeper family alignment, support for a hospice transition, or culturally sensitive guidance, the case is automatically flagged and a Koda Cares advocate facilitates a video conference to reach consensus — without adding burden to your care teams.
Yes. Completed care plans flow directly into Epic, Cerner, and other major EHR platforms. Patient goals and directives surface at the point of care — eliminating repeated questioning and ensuring goal-concordant care delivery every time a clinical decision is made.
Yes. Koda handles legally compliant documentation across all 50 states, including notarization and witness signing where required by state law. The platform manages every directive type and state-specific requirement automatically, removing compliance complexity from your team entirely.
Koda currently supports English and Spanish, with additional languages in development. The platform is designed to reach diverse populations equitably — available across web, phone, and in-person tablet experiences.
Health Systems & ACOs
Koda reduces end-of-life costs by approximately 40% by ensuring patient preferences are documented and accessible before a crisis. When care teams have clear directives at the point of care, unnecessary interventions are reduced and care aligns with what patients actually want — driving measurable cost reduction across the population.
Health systems using Koda achieve 80–85% ACP completion rates across diverse patient populations. Koda’s automated outreach, guided digital experience, and personalized nudges keep patients progressing through completion — far outperforming traditional paper-based approaches.
Koda is designed to operate without adding burden to care teams. Patient identification is automated using existing data, engagement happens through email, SMS, and in-person tablet experiences, and completed plans flow directly into your EHR. Providers see patient goals surface when decisions are made — no hunting for forms, no repeated questions.
Koda provides real-time dashboards showing ACP engagement and completion across your entire population — from first outreach to documented directive. Care teams can see who has started, who has completed, and who needs support, enabling proactive follow-up and ensuring no patient falls through the cracks.
Yes. Koda aligns directly with quality and value-based care goals by improving alignment between patient preferences and care delivery. Health systems report improved performance on value-based metrics, reduced avoidable utilization, and stronger patient experience scores.
Koda is designed for fast, low-lift implementation. The platform integrates with existing EHR workflows and uses your existing patient data for automated outreach — no manual list-building required. Your team focuses on care delivery while Koda manages the infrastructure.
Koda uses a multichannel delivery model — web, phone, and in-person tablet — to meet patients where they are. Complex cases are escalated to Koda Cares clinical advocates for additional support. This approach ensures equitable access across diverse populations regardless of digital literacy.
Payers
Koda reduces end-of-life utilization by approximately 40% and delivers $800–$1,500 in per-member savings by capturing documented care preferences and making them available across the provider network. When member goals are clear, care is better aligned — reducing unnecessary ICU days, ED visits, and late-stage interventions.
Koda supports Medicare Advantage plans by aligning care planning with cost, quality, and member experience goals. Plans using Koda report improvements in Star Ratings-related quality measures, higher member satisfaction (87 NPS), and measurable reductions in avoidable utilization — all critical drivers of MA performance.
Yes. Completed care plans flow into provider EMRs, claims systems, care management platforms, and member portals. This ensures member preferences are accessible at every point in the care continuum — from primary care to acute and post-acute settings.
Koda uses existing claims and utilization data to automatically identify priority populations for care planning outreach. No manual list-building is required, and engagement is initiated automatically — extending care planning access consistently across diverse member populations.
Yes. Koda can be white-labeled so members experience the program as a benefit from their health plan. This builds genuine goodwill and supports member retention — members recognize that their plan invested in their long-term wellbeing. Importantly, Koda care plans stay with the member even if they switch plans.
Koda’s real-time dashboards give plans visibility into completion rates by population, utilization impact (ICU days, ED visits), PMPM cost savings trends, Star Ratings correlation, and member NPS. No waiting for quarterly reports — the full picture is available in real time.
Yes. Koda supports Managed Medicaid programs focused on balancing cost control and equitable access. The platform’s multilingual, multichannel delivery model and 50-state legal compliance make it well-suited for the diverse, complex populations served by Medicaid managed care.
General
Advance care planning (ACP) is the process of documenting a person’s healthcare preferences — including treatment wishes, quality of life values, and who should make decisions if they cannot — in legally valid directives. When done well, ACP ensures that patients receive care aligned with their values, reduces family conflict during crises, and eliminates unnecessary interventions that neither patients nor families would have chosen.
Traditional paper-based ACP relies on manual processes, lacks specificity, and results in documents that are rarely accessible when they’re needed most. Koda replaces this with a guided digital experience that achieves 80–85% completion rates, produces legally valid directives across all 50 states, and integrates completed plans directly into the EHR — making patient goals available at the point of care, every time.
Koda has an 87 Net Promoter Score (NPS). Patients report feeling supported, not managed. The digital navigator guides them through scenario-based education at their own pace, with complex cases escalated to clinical advocates for family alignment and culturally competent support. Koda helps patients feel confident that their preferences are known and shared.
Koda is built to ensure that geography, income, race, and language never determine whether someone has a voice in their own care. The platform supports English and Spanish (with more languages in development), offers web, phone, and in-person tablet access, and uses automated outreach to identify and engage underserved populations who may otherwise never complete a care plan.
Elephants remember, protect their own, and move with intention and care. Koda uses the elephant as a symbol of the continuity, memory, and deep sense of responsibility that sits at the heart of advance care planning — ensuring that a person’s preferences are never forgotten when they’re needed most.
Koda serves three primary audiences: health system executives and population health leaders who need scalable ACP infrastructure and measurable outcomes; care teams and providers who need clear documentation at the point of care without administrative burden; and patients and families who need guided, understandable education and confidence that their preferences will be heard.
You can take a guided tour or watch a product video directly on the Koda website. To discuss how Koda fits your specific care environment and what outcomes you can expect, you can request a conversation with the Koda team.
