Cohere Health Teams Up with Microsoft to Advance Prior Authorization Using Ambient Listening

Cohere Health and Microsoft have teamed up to use ambient listening and AI to simplify and speed up the prior authorization process, part of a broader industry shift toward reducing paperwork and improving care at the point of service.

Prior authorization companies are moving into ambient listening, while ambient listening companies are expanding into prior authorization — a trend underscored by yet another partnership bridging the two spaces.

On Thursday, Cohere Health, a clinical intelligence company working to improve the relationship between payers and providers, announced a collaboration with Microsoft Dragon Copilot to advance prior authorization. It comes shortly after Highmark Health and Abridge launched a similar partnership aiming to streamline prior authorization through ambient AI.

Through the Cohere and Microsoft collaboration, providers using Dragon Copilot’s ambient listening technology during patient visits will be able to immediately send prior authorization requests and receive feedback from health plans.

The ambient listening technology will activate Cohere Health’s AI agents to gather and analyze relevant patient data and health history to support these prior authorization requests. Cohere Health will also notify the physician of what conditions need to be met in order for the prior authorization to be approved.

“There’s an opportunity for the physician to be able to ask the patient about, [for example], the type of pain they’re having,” said Gus Weber, chief digital and technology officer for Cohere Health, in an interview. “That may be a prerequisite for the prior auth to be approved. That really reduces the friction for the provider. It also gets the patient the care they need much faster. And so for us, it’s a great opportunity to really move right into the moment of truth with the patient and the physician.”

The Highmark Health/Abridge collaboration, announced in August, has similar goals of reducing the friction between payers and providers. The organizations are building technology that will identify when prior authorization is needed during patient visits, automatically generate a request and ask the clinician to fill in missing information before the patient leaves the room.

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