Health information network Availity has created a strategic alliance with PriorAuthNow to form what the companies are calling the healthcare industry's largest integrated prior authorization network.
Launched in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2001, as a joint venture between Florida Blue and Humana, Availity's original mission was to reduce administrative abrasion between payers and providers in Florida by digitizing manual, inefficient, and time-consuming processes. Today, Availity's investor base includes the original founders, HCSC, Anthem, and Novo Holdings Inc.
Payers and providers use Availty’s solution to exchange information without picking up the phone. Its platform carries 112 million covered lives and hosts 2 million providers. Interactions with nearly every U.S. health plan result in the 12 billion transactions it processes annually.
The companies said the alliance would unite Columbus, Ohio-based PriorAuthNow's EHR-integrated prior authorization workflows with Availity's multi-payer offerings to deliver prior authorization services. They noted that according to a recent CAQH CORE case study, PriorAuthNow reduced the effort spent conducting a prior authorization by 91 percent, from 45 minutes to 4. Additionally, 25 percent of the prior authorizations in the study required no human effort at all.
"As an industry, we've been talking about the challenges and inefficiencies of prior authorizations for a long time, so we're eager to collaborate with PriorAuthNow to solve this important problem," said Availity CEO Russ Thomas, in a statement. "Our products together bring unmatched benefit to all healthcare stakeholders. We know the high-quality service that PriorAuthNow brings to the table and can't wait to deliver results with them."
