Case Study: UCHealth cuts prior-authorization denials 46% and saves up to $720K in FTE costs with Waystar Prior Authorization Suite

Waystar enabled UCHealth to automate accounts, decrease denials, and improve service times

UCHealth, a 15-hospital system (12 hospitals + 3 affiliates) operating in three states with Epic EMR and nearly four million patient visits per year, struggled with manual prior-authorization and financial clearance processes that consumed up to 70% of staff time, required constant hiring of new FTEs, and drove higher denials and write-offs. To address this, UCHealth selected Waystar and deployed the Waystar Prior Authorization Suite, including the Auth Initiate and Auth Status modules.

Waystar automated submission and status retrieval—Auth Initiate handles payer submissions and Auth Status continuously checks payer determinations and publishes authorization details into Epic—yielding measurable results: automation up 42% in six months (over 60% in one year), prior-authorization days-out increased from 2.5 to 9 (3.4x/340% faster), denials related to authorizations decreased by 46%, estimated FTE salary savings up to $720,000, reallocation of 13–15 FTEs, and onboarding of 11 primary clinics, 67 specialty clinics, two hospitals and one ASC with no added headcount; ‘no authorization’ write-offs dropped from 0.5% to 0.1%.

UCHealth

Kerre Valtierra

Senior Director of Operations for Patient Line, Ambulatory Referral and Authorization