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Health plans · prior authorization

Model prior authorization automation without automating clinical denials.

Built for payer operations, clinical services and digital leaders. Auto-approval, reviewer productivity, avoidable appeals and provider abrasion in one CMS-aware model.

Your inputs

Benchmarks show typical enterprise ranges — override every field with your own numbers.

All lines of business in scope

Benchmark: 500k–5M for a regional to national plan

Intake, clinical review, documentation and QA

Benchmark: $18–$40 blended across nurse and MD review

45%

Deterministic approvals only — denials stay with clinicians

Benchmark: 35–60% on codified service categories

25%

From chart summarisation and criteria pre-population

Benchmark: 18–30%

8%

Share of requests that generate an appeal

Benchmark: 5–12%

Clinical review, correspondence and regulatory handling

Benchmark: $120–$300

20%

From consistent criteria and complete first-pass documentation

Benchmark: 15–30%

0.35 calls

Inbound calls chasing authorization status

Benchmark: 0.25–0.60

Benchmark: $5–$9 fully loaded

Interoperability APIs, clinical NLP, policy engine and governance

Benchmark: $800k–$2M

Annual operating savings
$22,212,000

Review, appeals and provider-contact cost removed across the authorization lifecycle.

Requests auto-approved540,000 / yr
Review cost avoided$16,926,000
Appeals avoided19,200 / yr
Provider calls deflected252,000 / yr
Simple payback0.6 months
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Directional estimate. Auto-approved cases retain 10% of review cost for audit sampling; adverse determinations always remain with licensed clinical reviewers.

Three-scenario view

Finance reviewers expect a range. These scenarios flex adoption and implementation cost around the model you entered.

Conservative
$15,379,650
1.0 mo payback

Slower adoption, higher integration effort

Base caseYour inputs
$22,212,000
0.6 mo payback

Your inputs as entered

Aggressive
$26,565,750
0.4 mo payback

Strong sponsorship, clean data, phased scale-up

How enterprise leaders use this model

Which prior authorization steps can safely be automated?
Intake, clinical document extraction, policy matching and auto-approval against deterministic criteria. Denials and clinically ambiguous cases stay with licensed reviewers — the model never automates an adverse determination.
How does CMS interoperability change the business case?
CMS-0057-F turnaround requirements make manual review economically hard to sustain. Automating intake and criteria matching is usually the fastest path to compliant turnaround without adding nurse reviewer headcount.
Where do appeals savings come from?
Consistent criteria application and complete documentation at first pass reduce avoidable denials, which in turn cuts appeals volume. Each avoided appeal removes both review labour and downstream call volume.
What auto-approval rate is realistic?
Plans typically reach 35–60% auto-approval on high-volume, well-codified service categories such as imaging and durable medical equipment.