Simplifying prior authorizations to reduce delays and manual work

When Tryon Medical Partners broke away from a large hospital system to pursue independent care, they also broke up with their old electronic health records system. With the new practice came a new comprehensive software and services solution: athenaOne®, the all-in one solution that provides an integrated suite of electronic health record (EHR), practice and revenue cycle management, and patient engagement products.

And they never looked back. In fact, Tryon has only grown their relationship with athenahealth since 2019, and they recently added Authorization Management services to automate and streamline the prior authorization and referral process for their 300 clinicians.

Tryon Chief Operating Officer Jordan Archer attributes athenaOne Authorization Management with more than merely short-term wins such as lower costs. As he puts it, “The first thing [Auth Man] has done is] continued to foster our philosophy around pairing top talent and technology. And that thesis has played out unbelievably well.”

According to Archer, these practice management and revenue cycle optimizations are setting their organization up for even greater long-term success. He said, “While cost is important, quality is also really important. We decided that an integration with athena was paramount not only from an efficiency standpoint but just from an affordability standpoint.”

Finding that balance can be one of the biggest challenges independent medical practices face. Archer says, “What comes to mind with athenaOne Authorization Management is our ability to [balance short- and long- term goals] in a super meaningful way, not only as it relates to our current practice now, but as it relates to our ability to scale and grow."

Archer also highlights that athenahealth has made rapid advancements in administrative reduction, creating more time for the patient-physician relationship, which is what Tryon is fundamentally based on. According to Archer, Tryon is “diving headfirst into [the VBC] arena” because it "brings clinicians back to why they got into medicine – caring for patients.”

Archer says that to accomplish this, they must focus on reducing “administrivia” as much as possible to allow providers to focus on the coordination of care and work at the top of their license. Tryon is leveraging AI “in places it shouldn’t scare patients” to better predict high-risk and high-need populations, and services like athenaOne Authorization Management are critical to wick away manual overhead wherever possible.

Find out more about how athenaOne’s Extended Claims Resolution Management and Authorization Management services can ease the complexity for large practices managing referrals and prior authorizations for hundreds of patients and multiple payers every week.

Schedule a call with one of our specialists to learn how AI-powered algorithms and automation plus a dedicated success team can help make referrals and authorizations more manageable.