Under normal pre-pandemic circumstances, maintaining accurate provider data was already a major challenge for health plans, health systems, and many of the vendors that support them. Provider office closures, consolidations, bankruptcies, re-organizations, and other disruptions caused by the ensuing recession will only intensify the problem in the very near future.

Burden Shift to Providers

Over the past several years much of the burden of keeping a health plan’s provider data current has fallen to the providers in virtually all Provider Data Management (PDM) platforms. The logic that catalyzed this shift was sound – ‘the best source of information about a healthcare provider is the provider themselves.’ Providers have understandably pushed back on this notion however. They are not ‘on board’ with shouldering the cost and time burdens of continuously updating payers, vendors or PDM platforms.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

As the practice and delivery of healthcare rapidly adjusts to find its new groove, the unprecedented disruption brought on by the pandemic should accelerate a much-needed shift to technology-based (AI and ML) automated gathering, curation, enrichment, and distribution of high-quality provider data.

The new world of innovation in PDM technology will reduce the burden to providers while giving health plan and health system leaders greater functionality and reliable insight to the completeness and accuracy of their provider data. What’s more, that same innovative PDM technology will operate in a connected way to ensure payer and health system compliance with new interoperability standards to support better patient experience and lower cost of healthcare.

Learn more: https://curatus.com/providerlenz/