Have you tried AskMD? It’s time to ask again.

Over 12 years ago, I wrote a short post on this blog with a simple question: Have you tried AskMD?

Back then, AskMD was a free app for iPhone. You could tell it a symptom and it would walk you through a personalized questionnaire, matching your self-reported responses, medications, and health history against evidence-based clinical research. When you were done, it gave you a list of the most likely potential causes as well as a summary to bring to your doctor. AskMD won Best Medical App two years running, and hundreds of thousands of people used it to walk into the exam room more prepared.

The idea behind it was simple and, I’d argue, exactly right: when something feels off, you shouldn’t have to face that question alone. You should be able to ask, get guidance you can trust, and know what to do next.

We were right about the idea. We just needed technology to catch up.

The right strategy, waiting for its moment

The original AskMD could help you explore what might be causing your symptoms. What it couldn’t do was help you make sense of everything that comes after that – from identifying the highest quality in-network specialist and synthesizing your medical history across different doctors, clinics, and labs, to incorporating data from your wearables and factoring in your insurance coverage, your location, and your options. We couldn’t turn “here’s what this could be” into “here’s what to do about it” because the technology to pull all that together into one cohesive experience simply didn’t exist in 2013.

It does now.

Over the past decade, we never stopped building toward that original vision. As new technologies became available, we connected health records, insurance eligibility, provider networks, and evidence-based health content across the populations we serve. And when AI finally matured enough to reason across all of it safely and securely, we knew exactly what to do. We’d known for many years.

Meet the new AskMD

We have now launched the new AskMD, and it starts from a conviction we’ve held since day one at Sharecare: Healthcare begins with the system. We begin with you.

Every part of the U.S. healthcare system runs on its own logic. The billing code. The coverage tier. The referral. The 15-minute appointment slot. Then, as the patient, you’re expected to understand and adapt. AskMD flips that. It starts with you, not just your symptom, and reasons outward to the system on your behalf.

When something feels off, you can just ask. In plain language, the way you’d ask a friend who happens to know healthcare inside and out. By combining conversational AI with insurance-aware navigation, AskMD listens, asks thoughtful follow-up questions, and guides you toward what to do next. Not generic advice. Our proprietary, orchestrated multi-model approach to AI applies the right model to each task within AskMD, guided by clinical standards and reasoning logic. Guidance based on you, your history, your coverage, and the care you can actually access.

The new AskMD can:

• Help you understand what’s happening. Thoughtful, evidence-based guidance that starts with you, not just a symptom, drawing from Sharecare’s proprietary clinical content, health education, and decision-support resources.
• Know your coverage. Powered by real-time insurance eligibility and payor data integrations, AskMD embeds your benefits and insurance into every recommendation, so you know what your plan actually covers before you make the call.
• Find the right doctor, not just the closest one. Recommendations that go beyond star ratings and Google reviews. Through Sharecare and partners’ curated network data, AskMD connects you to quality providers and available virtual care services that match your needs, your coverage, and your location.
• Keep your health history in one place. A living record connected across providers, labs, and wearables, so AskMD understands your full picture. Securely stored portable health summaries are structured to help you access and share important health information while reducing repetitive paperwork.
• Reward healthy actions. Meaningful rewards for staying on top of you and your loved ones’ health.

One thing hasn’t changed and never will: AskMD doesn’t replace medical professionals. It gets you to the right one, better prepared, with the benefit of your own information behind you. It’s built to meet healthcare’s highest standards for safety, privacy, security, and clinical oversight, with real clinicians shaping where guidance ends and care begins.

From a question to a plan

In 2013, we said AskMD would help you go from wondering what could be wrong to knowing what you can do about it. That promise was ahead of its time. Today, we can keep it in full.

Start with your question. End with a plan.

More than 12 years ago, I asked if you’d tried AskMD. Today, I’m asking you to try it again, because your answer is waiting at askmd.sharecare.com.

Just AskMD.

You can check out the new AskMD on the web, the App Store, and Google Play.