3 Ways AKASA Authorization Advisor Can Help Your RCM Team

There’s no getting around prior authorization in healthcare. At least, not anytime soon. It’s a manual process that your team simply has to deal with. But, there was also a time when people thought the best way to transport goods was by dragging them on a sled. And then the wheel was invented.

Just because prior authorization is a thorn in the side of many RCM teams, taking 12 minutes and 7 seconds on average, doesn’t mean it has to be. Technology is now capable of feats previously thought impossible.

Meet AKASA Authorization Advisor.

Powered by generative AI (GenAI), Authorization Advisor is an AI assistant that enables auth specialists to access crucial information needed to submit auth requests quickly on payer portals. It helps them fill in patient information more rapidly and accurately attach relevant clinical documentation.

It empowers your team to do more with less — helping them complete a higher volume per day with less effort. Authorization Advisor provides prior auth specialists — from entry-level to veteran — with an interactive sidebar view of patient details and curated clinical documentation from the EHR, all directly in their workflow. Sound too good to be true?

Every revenue cycle leader is tired of hearing about having to do more with less, let alone having to actually do more with less. While automation is a boon to many RCM teams, it’s also a hard financial and operational change for some organizations. AKASA Authorization Advisor allows healthcare leaders to give teams superpowers with an intuitive tool powered by the latest in GenAI technology, and I couldn’t be more excited by this opportunity.”

 

~Amy Raymond, SVP of Revenue Cycle Operations and Deployments at AKASA

Here’s how AKASA Authorization Advisor can help you and your staff.

1. Efficiently extracts and presents key information from your EHR in one place

The top reason for initial payer denials is errors related to data from patient access or registration (eligibility or missing prior auth), according to an HFMA survey of healthcare leaders that was commissioned by AKASA.

Extenuating circumstances happen, but typically, the kinds of mistakes mentioned above stem from human error. When you’re hopping from your EHR to a payer portal and back, and so on, it’s easy for mistakes to happen — especially when your team is likely understaffed and overworked.

One of the key benefits of the AKASA Authorization Advisor is its ability to connect to your EHR through standards-based integration. It brings all relevant information required for prior auth submissionfrom your EHR and displays it in an interactive browser sidebar alongside the payer portal. Your specialists can quickly access this information on-screen and fill in patient details without ever clicking out of the payer website, improving productivity and accuracy.

Real Results: Authorization Advisor can cut down the time your team spends on submitting a prior auth by half.

2. Intelligently suggests relevant clinical documentation using powerful GenAI

Finding and attaching required clinical documentation with auth requests is a time-consuming task. But it’s also critical to the authorization submission process. Lacking documentation to support medical necessity is one of the top reasons for denials.

When your team is likely understaffed, sifting through dozens of medical documents to determine what should be included in an auth request is doubly difficult. Fortunately, Authorization Advisor can help in this instance as well.

It uses advanced generative AI to learn which clinical documents typically go with particular codes. Using this technology, it can comprehensively review all relevant patient information and medical records and recommend documents to include in the auth request — providing evidence-based justifications.

Plus, it continuously learns from documents the prior auth specialists select and what answers they choose on the auth form. The AI uses all of this knowledge to improve how it operates and the suggestions it makes.

Real Results: Our GenAI could help staff find 15% more relevant documents than staff alone in auth requests.

3. Seamlessly supports any payer portal, service line, and most EHRs

Many tools offer limited payer connectivity, service line compatibility, and EHR support. If you choose a tool that works with your big payers at the moment, what about your smaller, regional payers? And what about when you add or change your payer mix? Or when payer updates their portal and suddenly your tool of choice no longer works or needs troubleshooting?

Unlike many tools and solutions out there, AKASA Authorization Advisor is capable of working with any payer portal or service line, and most EHRs. As an interactive browser extension, Authorization Advisor lives alongside the payer portal and in your workflows, giving it greater flexibility.

Not only does Authorization Advisor allow you to work within the systems you already have and know, but it also prevents you from being locked into a particular solution. If you want to make changes to your internal systems, add new service lines, or realize payers made updates, your team can continue using Authorization Advisor without worry.

Ready to see how generative AI and the AKASA Authorization Advisor can help you accelerate your auth process like never before? Chat with one of our experts and see the technology in action.