Fall 2024 Scholarship Winner: Caroline Craig

The BondExchange Scholarship is an essay contest that seeks to help currently enrolled college students and high school seniors pay for their education by awarding one student per semester $1,000 in financial assistance. The Fall 2024 BondExchange Scholarship recipient is Caroline Craig, a student at The University of Lynchburg obtaining her master’s degree.

Caroline Craig

When asked why obtaining a college degree is important to her, Caroline said:

“A college degree is important to me because the education you receive is invaluable. My college degree allowed me to pursue my dreams and go into the medical field. My long-term goal was always to go to PA school, and by having a college degree from UVA, that dream turned into a reality. I now get to pursue my master’s degree at the University of Lynchburg and receive an education that other students dream of. I am so thankful for the education I have received so far and know my dreams wouldn’t be attainable without my degree.”

Check out Caroline’s essay below:

Prompt

How will artificial intelligence (AI) affect the insurance industry?

Answer

Currently, I work as a pharmacy technician at CVS to get healthcare experience for my spot at PA school. With that being said, I work with insurance every day, and I can see AI being a huge benefit to the insurance industry. While no technology is perfect, neither are humans. We see mistakes every day where medication is run under the wrong insurance, medications need prior authorizations, certain drugs aren’t covered, etc. When a patient leaves a doctor’s office, they expect to be able to go to their pharmacy and get their medication without an issue. What we find is that 50% of the time there is an issue and it only leads to patient frustration when they come to the pharmacy expecting their medication but there’s an issue causing their prescription to be delayed. My hope is that AI can bridge the gap between doctors, pharmacies, and insurance agencies. I think AI will be able to catch prior authorizations, drug formulary preferences, and drug NDCs with the best prices. AI can be extremely beneficial to take pressure off both doctors and pharmacies. Having AI in place could decrease the workload and hopefully cause less mistakes and better patient satisfaction.