Epic Debuts Real-Time Prior Authorization Checks and an AI Tool for Outpatient Visits

At its 2026 Users Group Meeting, Epic announced real-time prior authorization checks now live at four health systems — Ochsner Health, Froedtert ThedaCare Health, Denver Health, and Summit Health — alongside Ergo Visit, a new AI tool that summarizes patient records to guide clinicians through outpatient visits.

What Real-Time Prior Auth Actually Eliminates

Clinicians and staff can now check prior authorization requirements directly in Epic when placing an order or scheduling an appointment — with insurers UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, and Network Health specifically — eliminating phone calls, faxes, and manually retyping information into separate insurer portals. This targets one of healthcare's most persistent, purely administrative friction points, not a clinical capability at all.

Ergo Visit's Different Job

• Ergo Visit compiles and summarizes patient information from Epic's EHR and other sources, finding patterns across a patient's record to guide clinicians through outpatient visits — a decision-support tool, not an automation of the visit itself
• Ochsner Health, Central Oregon, and Salem Clinic are the first live sites
• Real-time prior auth directly targets administrative burden and care delays; Ergo Visit targets clinical decision quality and thoroughness — two genuinely different problems Epic is addressing with two separate tools, not one blended "AI feature"