Cut Paperwork, Not Care.
January is coming. Let’s not digitize fragmentation.
Healthcare has digitized its organizations. The work between them still too often depends on separate connections, portals, repeated checks and phone calls.
The move to electronic prior authorization is a chance to change that — not simply recreate it with newer technology.
Smart Health Network brings health plans, providers and their partners together through shared, neutral infrastructure. Connect once. Reuse the work. Make the process clearer for the person waiting for care.
Prior authorization is first. Start testing now.
Better APIs should not mean more connections to manage.
If every provider has to connect, register and test separately with every health plan, electronic prior authorization can reproduce the burden it was meant to remove. Each organization may meet its requirements while the work between them keeps growing.
Repeat onboarding, credentials, configuration and testing across each payer-provider relationship.
Establish the common connection and testing work, then reuse it as more organizations participate.
N × N: everyone connects separately. Repeated onboarding, credentials, configuration and testing across payer-provider relationships.
N × 1: a shared way to connect. Establish the common connection and testing work, then reuse it as more organizations participate.
Keep the systems that work. Make the next connection easier.
Does the second connection become easier than the first? Does the fifth? That is the test.
Patients belong in the process — not at the end of it.
Was the request submitted? Is information missing? Who needs to act? Has a decision been made?
People should not have to make repeated calls to answer those questions.
We are building toward clear progress across organizations, with people and their care teams able to see the information they need through the applications they use. Plans make coverage decisions. Providers deliver care. The network helps connect the work between them.
Less time connecting the pieces. More time getting care.
Illustration — from a recorded Delaware prior-authorization call, May 15, 2026:
Dr. Hockstein: “You don’t have my note. You have no clinical information on this patient?”
Reviewer: “I have nothing attached to this patient’s requests — and this is why we said we could not approve the request.”
Dr. Hockstein: “So it was denied without asking for additional information?”
— Neil Hockstein, MD · Delaware Surgeon General · Health Care Commission Chair · practicing head & neck surgeon
A practical way to prepare together
The Cut Paperwork, Not Care Coalition invites states, plans, providers and technology partners to share implementation work instead of recreating it market by market.
Implement once where possible. Test once where possible. Reuse the work wherever possible.
Delaware is going first. Its August 31 market-readiness session brought together 53 participants to work through testing capacity, provider connections and other practical obstacles. Other markets are invited to join the work.
Testing uses fictitious patient information and can begin before a production agreement. Initial live Delaware prior-authorization workflows are targeted for January 2027 as the participating systems become ready.
What this means for you
Included exchange. Additional services by choice.
Supported prior-authorization exchange carries no SHN participation, network-access, transaction or required Gateway-software-license fee. Required status and records are included. The detailed use cases and operating terms are on What’s Included.
Organizations can buy help operating their Gateway or additional management and analytical services. They can also use their own teams or qualified partners. Integration, infrastructure and vendor costs may still apply. What’s included →
Shared infrastructure needs shared trust.
Healthcare organizations need to work together without placing the whole system under the control of one payer, provider or technology company.
Smart Health Network is being built as a neutral utility, with a public-benefit operator, independent stewardship and a voice for the organizations that use it.
Public stewardship. The Governance Council safeguards the network’s neutrality and oversees important changes to its common rules and economic commitments.
Patient rights protected independently. The Data Rights Trust serves as an independent patient fiduciary, protecting people’s rights over their health information.
Participants help shape the network. Providers, health plans and technology builders contribute practical experience through the Participant Advisory Council.
An accountable operator. Smart Health Network PBC builds and operates the network and is responsible for the services it provides.
Built for shared use. Governed for public benefit.
Prior authorization is the beginning.
The same connections can support more work across organizations and applications over time. The opportunity is not simply to move more messages. It is to make healthcare easier to navigate without making people carry the information between institutions themselves.
Built by people who have done this before.
The team behind Smart Health Network has built and operated real-time health infrastructure at national scale — across providers, payers, and the standards bodies that govern how health information moves. Meet the people →
Help build the shared path.
“The question is not whether digital transformation will occur — it is essentially inevitable. … We can intervene now and organize the healthcare industry and regulatory levers around a digital and data architecture to create a better health future for all.”
Bring one workflow, one implementation challenge or the organizations in your market. Start testing, join a readiness discussion or talk with the team about how to participate.
Please do not include patient information, passwords or production credentials. See our Website Privacy Policy for how inquiry information is handled.
Smart Health Network PBC · A mission-locked Delaware Public Benefit Corporation