What is the problem with manual prior authorization?

Every payer has a different portal with different forms, logins, and clinical templates. Visit counts are unforgiving - one session over the cap results in a denial. Re-authorizations need real documentation including progress notes, functional outcomes, and medical necessity every time. Follow-up takes an average of 12 hours per week according to the AMA.

How does Athelas help with prior authorization?

The Prior Authorization Agent submits and tracks approvals across payers automatically. It files evaluations, initial visit blocks, and re-authorizations with the right documentation, manages visit counts to prevent denials, and handles progress notes, functional outcomes, and medical necessity documentation.

The EHR Built for Orthopedic Practices Is Now Open for Early Access

Athelas Air is a next-generation EHR built specifically for orthopedic practices and procedure-driven care.

Designed around the way orthopedic teams actually work, Air connects clinical documentation, scheduling, patient flow, billing, and revenue cycle management in one system.

Request early access to Athelas Air

The Problem

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Orthopedic practices depend on volume, precision, and timing. But many EHRs and practice management systems were built around generic workflows that don’t reflect the realities of orthopedic care.

Administrative work can pull providers and staff away from patients, such as:

Imaging authorizations and surgical scheduling
Modifier logic
Global period tracking
Documentation
Reimbursement

The Solution

An Orthopedic EHR Built Around Your Workflow

Athelas Air connects the workflow from consult to OR to reimbursement.

Documentation, scheduling, coding, and compliance workflows feed directly into billing, helping orthopedic practices reduce administrative work, accelerate reimbursement, and improve first-pass claim performance.

What Is Athelas Air?

Athelas Air is an orthopedic EHR and practice management platform designed for high-volume, procedure-driven care.

Unlike legacy EHRs that operate across disconnected systems, Air brings clinical workflows, scheduling, revenue cycle management, and AI together on one platform. That means orthopedic clinics, imaging, surgery, documentation, and billing can operate from the same system instead of relying on fragmented tools and manual handoffs.

Built for Orthopedic Workflows

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Digital patient follow-up note showing assessment and plan for John Stones, reporting improved sleep, no respiratory distress, mild fatigue, and instructions to continue inhaler and schedule a pulmonary test.

Reusable Orthopedic Order Sets

Create protocols for common medications, labs, imaging, DME, and referrals. Apply an entire order set with one action, then customize it for the patient.

Cash flow chart showing Deposits $26,500, Reconciled $19,200, and Posted $17,800 with a bar graph of insurance deposits and a line graph overlay.

Scheduling Built Around Orthopedic Practices

Define provider availability rules down to the week so calendars reflect real clinic schedules, OR days, and other recurring availability.

Medical note for patient Andrew Walker documenting lower back pain, negative chest pain, shortness of breath, and other symptoms with management plan.

Patient Flow Tracking

See where every patient is in the visit, from check-in through discharge, with a patient flow tracker built into the EHR.

Infographic showing healthcare claim improvements: denials up 12% week over week, appeal success rate 93% last 30 days, payer delays decreased in last 7 days; steps include appeal draft generated, clinical evidence attached, ready for submission, and approved with payment expected; note highlights errors drop, payments accelerate, and overhead shrinks when systems are unified.

Labs and Prescriptions in the Chart

Keep ordering, results, and prescriptions together so providers and staff don’t have to move between disconnected systems.

Built-in Fax Management

Receive referrals, medical records, imaging, and results through a built-in fax inbox connected to the patient workflow.

One Platform for Orthopedic EHR and Revenue Cycle Management

Athelas Air is part of the broader Athelas platform, built to connect clinical operations with revenue cycle management.

Athelas RCM for Orthopedic Practices

Athelas RCM combines orthopedic billing expertise, intelligent automation, analytics, and AI-powered workflows to help practices manage the revenue cycle more efficiently.

Hydra, Athelas' autonomous RCM system, continuously improves its workflows with claim data. Eligibility and coding are validated before submission, and for supported payers, Hydra can extract, package, and file appeals automatically.

Analytics help practices identify revenue trends by procedure, provider, and payer, giving orthopedic leaders greater visibility into billing performance.

Ambient AI for Orthopedic Documentation and Coding

Athelas Ambient AI captures natural patient-provider conversations in more than 60 languages and generates complete, specialty-tailored SOAP notes before the provider leaves the room. 

During the encounter, Ambient AI can also suggest relevant CPT codes based on the documentation, helping billing teams capture appropriate codes at the point of care.

Results From Practices Using Athelas

Orthopedic practices are already using Athelas to streamline revenue cycle management and consolidate their operations.

Ortho Plus

Ortho Plus uses Athelas RCM and has reported:

$368K in additional patient revenue collected

$56K recovered from previously denied claims

1.9% denial and rejection rate

91% first-pass claim rate

98% of encounters closed

3-day average submission time

Raleigh Orthopaedic

Raleigh Orthopaedic, a leading Wake County orthopedic practice, consolidated 140+ providers onto one Athelas platform. 

Since going live, the practice has:

Reduced billing backlog by 81.5%

Increased weekly revenue by 15.3%

Read the full Raleigh Orthopaedic case study

An Orthopedic EHR Designed for the Way You Work

Your EHR should support the entire orthopedic workflow, not force your team to work around disconnected systems.

Athelas Air brings orthopedic EHR, practice management, revenue cycle management, billing automation, and AI-powered documentation together in one platform.

Early access is now open.

The Athelas Platform

Athelas Air brings orthopedic EHR, practice management, revenue cycle management, billing automation, and AI-powered documentation together in one platform.

A graph of monthly cash flow ordered by date posted with the graph slowly going up.

Boost payments faster with transparent, automated tools

RCM

Chat conversation between a female doctor asking about new symptoms and a male patient responding about feeling lightheaded when standing up quickly, accompanied by voice waveform.

AI co-pilots for documenting, coding and querying

Ambient AI

The all-in-one EHR that makes practice delightful again

Air