Humata Health vs SamaCare
Two Prior Authorization vendors, side by side. Facts from public sources; judgments are ours.
At a glance
Derived from public facts · a rough scale, not a ranking
| Humata Health | SamaCare | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Enterprise contract (custom) · Priced on volume and workflow complexity | Free to providers (funded by payers/pharma) · Pharma funds premium services and data |
| Speed to go live | EHR-embedded, standard integration project | Web portal, no IT project required |
| Automation model | Autonomous agents · Touchless prior auth, exception-based review | Software platform · Unified PA portal, AI touchless tier |
| Built for | Mid-size groups, Enterprise systems, Payers | Small practices, Mid-size groups |
| Security posture | SOC 2 Type II, HITRUST, HIPAA | SOC 2 Type I, HIPAA |
| Company maturity | 3 yrs (est. 2023) | 8 yrs (est. 2018) |
| Financial backing | $25M+ · Series A | $33M+ · Series B |
| Named customers | 5 named | None public |
| Published results | No public numbers | No public numbers |
| Documented integrations | 4 listed | 4 listed |
| Third-party validation | None found | None found |
Bottom line
- Pick Humata Health if prior auth volume is drowning your staff and you want touchless submissions inside the EHR with payer-grade compliance credentials.
- Pick SamaCare if you are a specialty practice buried in medical-benefit prior auths and want one free web portal replacing faxes and payer portals today.
Humata Health
AI prior authorization for providers and payers
- Founded
- 2023
- HQ
- Orlando, FL
- Stage
- Series A
- Raised
- $25M+
What it does
- Matches payer policies to determine if prior auth is required
- Auto-gathers and bundles clinical documentation for submission
- Submits authorizations touchlessly across payer connections
- Monitors auth status and flags changes after submission
- Detects CPT mismatches before submission
- Supports gold-carding and exception-based review workflows
Where it's strong
- Founder Jeremy Friese, MD previously built and sold Verata Health, so this is a second product in the same category, not a first attempt.
- Strategic investors on the payer side (Blue Venture Fund, Optum Ventures, Highmark Ventures) give it unusual payer connectivity for a provider-facing tool.
- Real deployment scale for its age: roughly 225 hospitals and 42,000 physicians, plus CMS selecting it as a technology partner for the WISeR model.
What buyers should weigh
- Headline metrics like 96% first-pass approval and 45% fewer manual touches are vendor-reported, so validate them against your own service lines in a pilot.
- Its role as an AI clinical-review partner in the CMS WISeR model puts it on both the provider and payer sides of prior auth, which some provider organizations may see as a conflict.
- The company traces back to prior authorization assets from Olive AI, which shut down, so diligence which parts of the platform are new versus inherited.
Named customers
Texas Health Resources · Hartford HealthCare · Renown Health · Rochester Regional Health · Lee Health
Integrations
SamaCare
Prior authorization platform for buy-and-bill specialty drugs
- Founded
- 2018
- HQ
- San Francisco, CA
- Stage
- Series B
- Raised
- $33M+
What it does
- One portal for all medical benefit PA submissions
- AI-assisted form completion and payer requirements
- Status tracking, renewals, and expiration alerts
- Benefit verification and enrollment workflows
- Approval analytics across a 20K-provider network
Where it's strong
- Purpose-built for buy-and-bill drugs, a workflow retail-focused PA tools handle poorly.
- Free for practices because pharma funds it, which removes the budget fight.
- Network data from roughly 20,000 providers improves payer form accuracy and approval odds.
What buyers should weigh
- The pharma-funded model means manufacturers see aggregate data; understand the data terms before signing.
- Scope is medication PA for specialty drugs, not procedures, imaging, or surgical auths.
- Smaller company (Series B) than incumbent networks, so vendor risk is higher than with McKesson or Optum.
Integrations
Compare against the rest of Prior Authorization
Deciding between these two?
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