AI that does more than look smart. It works smarter for physicians
AI tools have brought real gains to healthcare, helping physicians work more efficiently and connect with patients in new ways. The challenge is that when those tools come from multiple vendors, they often live in separate systems, forcing practices to juggle log-ins, duplicate work, and manage disjointed workflows.
That’s why at athenahealth, we’re doing AI differently. We’re not adding clutter or forcing physicians to work around disconnected tools. Instead, our vision is an AI-native athenaOne® that works as an assistant to your practice, taking on the tasks nobody wants to do — like wading through mountains of faxed data or sifting through endless administrative work. It’s there to make the workflow smoother, the decision-making clearer, and the day just a little bit easier.
An invisible, powerful AI intelligence layer
With our AI-native athenaOne, AI will become the core of the system — making the EMR truly smart. It will anticipate what physicians need in the moment, serving up relevant data and insights without forcing them to go hunting for information. Acting as an always-on intelligent assistant, it will help reduce physician burnout by taking on repetitive tasks, surfacing insights at the point of care, and suggesting next best actions in real time.
What truly sets AI-native athenaOne apart, however, is the intelligence layer: a dynamic foundation that will house our expanding library of AI agents, models, and rules engines. This intelligence layer connects the immense clinical, operational, and financial data across our network with the day-to-day workflows physicians and staff interact with in athenaOne. By embedding this layer natively across the platform, we are able to deliver smarter, patient-centered insights that enhance clinical decision-making, streamline care coordination, and optimize practice performance. It’s smarter AI working for physicians in ways that make appreciable, tangible differences.
AI healthcare tools that are actually practical: The four key pillars of AI-native athenaOne
The four key pillars of AI-native athenaOne — platform interoperability, enhanced clinical decision-making, revenue cycle optimization, and patient engagement — form the foundation of our holistic approach to transforming the practice with artificial intelligence.
1. AI-enhanced interoperability
At athenahealth, we’ve always led the charge in interoperability using cloud-native architecture on a single code base, access to the full scope of clinical information, and real-time data exchange to deliver longitudinal patient records that power better whole-person care across the healthcare ecosystem. This core strength has allowed us to deliver differentiated advantages to our customers, improving physician workflows and driving better patient outcomes. Last month, we became the first healthcare IT company to implement TEFCA at scale, further cementing our leadership in connecting practices, hospitals, payers, and public health registries.
With AI-native athenaOne, we are building on this foundation, layering in next-gen AI technologies to turn this seamless data exchange into actionable insights for physicians. We’re transforming healthcare data exchange into smarter, more connected healthcare solutions and making the promised benefits of interoperability a reality.
2. Enhanced clinical workflows and decision-making support with an AI EHR
Physicians want a smooth path to care delivery — yet every day, they navigate administrative obstacles that stand between patients and better health, and between practices and a healthier bottom line. AI-native athenaOne will create an invisible, intelligent second mind in the exam room that helps reduce cognitive load and offers personalized decision support. AI will synthesize clinical data and documents to provide a clear, actionable overview, allowing physicians to make faster, more informed decisions.
We’ll also be rolling out tools that transform how physicians interact with their workflows, by automating documentation, leveraging voice-powered solutions, and deploying AI agents to streamline task completion and platform navigation. And at the point of care, our upcoming enhanced search tools will simplify and expedite critical information retrieval. Together, these are exciting transformations in the way physicians interact with the EHR platform and how care gets delivered every day.
3. Automating and optimizing the revenue cycle with AI RCM
At athenahealth, we’ve spent over two decades solving problems in revenue cycle management that others couldn’t crack. More than 20 years ago, we revolutionized the model by creating a modern, cloud-native “intelligent RCM factory,” designed to process claims with industrial precision. By breaking down the revenue cycle into distinct, highly tuned and automated stages, we laid the groundwork for an AI-native system that adapts, scales, and drives results.
This intelligent framework has allowed us to infuse automation and AI into every stage of the revenue cycle over the past decade. The results speak for themselves — industry-leading performance, with a 5.5% median initial denial rate, a 1.2% rejection rate, and a 79% patient pay yield. These metrics reflect our commitment to making the process more efficient, accurate, and financially transparent.
But we’re not stopping there. Our next-generation, real-time AI-powered solutions are set to tackle the challenges that have remained unsolved. As we continue to innovate, athenahealth is making RCM not only smarter but truly transformative for practices, supporting financial clarity and unlocking new opportunities for operational efficiency.
Transforming patient engagement with AI
Smarter AI-powered capabilities are also poised to transform patient engagement — another area where higher expectations from patients are translating to increased demand on physicians and their staff. AI should make things easier for patients, too. AI-native athenaOne will also embed AI across the patient journey, from intelligent appointment scheduling to automated reminders, to help practices be more responsive, more personalized, and ultimately more effective in delivering care.
With our AI-driven core, practices can reduce staff workload, improve efficiency, and enhance patient satisfaction. Physicians will have more time to focus on care, while patients experience a smoother, more supportive interaction each time they connect.
An AI-native solution that’s scalable, seamless, and ready for what’s next
The pace of change in the healthcare industry is unprecedented, and staying on top of innovations can add another burden to the already full plate of health professionals. One of the biggest headaches in healthcare IT is trying to implement new systems without disrupting everything. But with athenaOne, that’s not a problem.
Because our solution is built on a single, unified code base, AI enhancements get rolled out across the entire platform without complex installations or separate systems to deal with. Every user, whether you’re a solo practitioner or a large group, gets access to powerful new AI capabilities, right out of the box, and updated three times a year automatically as our roadmap becomes reality.
Even as these features roll out, our AI experience offers flexibility for physicians to choose how they engage and adopt at their own pace. Whether they want to toggle the AI features on or off based on their comfort level or organizational readiness, we’ve built athenaOne to meet them where they are, making it easy to incorporate into daily practice without forcing change.
Whether they want to toggle the AI features on or off based on their comfort level or organizational readiness, we’ve built athenaOne to meet them where they are, making it easy to incorporate into daily practice without forcing change.
The road ahead: Always evolving, always innovating, always delivering
At athenahealth, we don’t believe in static solutions. The key to maintaining this forward momentum is a collaborative feedback loop that we prioritize across our customer base. We engage with physicians, administrators, and practices to understand their needs and refine our AI capabilities based on what we hear. Beyond keeping our design human-centered, this process also ensures that the tools we build aren’t just smart, they’re exactly what practices need to succeed today and tomorrow.
Sometimes, to get the job done, you have to reimagine how a system works at its core. AI shouldn’t be a flashy distraction. It should be the best medical assistant, making life easier for the people who are delivering care. Curing complexity and making care simpler for physicians, practices, and patients has always been our mission. Making athenaOne an AI-native platform is the latest way we’re helping execute on it – and we’re excited for what lies ahead.