Buoy Health

Details

Buoy Health focuses on one job: helping you decide what to do when you feel sick. It runs an interactive symptom interview—asking focused questions and adjusting the flow based on your answers—then produces informational results aimed at care navigation. For many users, the key value is reducing indecision. Plenty of health situations aren’t emergencies, but they still create stress because you don’t know whether to wait, self‑treat, see primary care, or go to urgent care.

Buoy’s interview-style approach is useful because it pushes you to be specific: when symptoms started, whether they’re getting worse, what you’ve tried, and whether you have related symptoms that change the context. That structure can also help you communicate better with a clinician, because you end up with a clearer timeline and summary rather than a vague “I’ve felt weird for a while.”

Another benefit is “care matching.” Depending on where and how it’s deployed, Buoy can point people toward appropriate care options, which is helpful in systems where patients struggle to navigate providers, urgent care, and telehealth. In some deployments, it’s embedded into a health plan or provider workflow, which can reduce the number of steps between symptom assessment and scheduling.

It’s important to treat Buoy as guidance, not a diagnosis. The safest use is to see it as a high-quality front door: it organizes your story, flags when a situation might be more urgent, and supports a better decision about when and where to seek care. If you have red‑flag symptoms (trouble breathing, chest pain, weakness on one side, severe allergic reactions, serious bleeding, confusion), do not rely on an online assistant—seek urgent medical care.

Used responsibly, Buoy can help users avoid unnecessary panic and unnecessary visits, while still encouraging timely evaluation when it’s genuinely needed.