The Philadelphia health-tech company teaching AI to read the chart, check the payer's rules and file the prior authorization - in seconds, not days.
Every clinician has a version of the same story: a patient who waited not for a diagnosis, but for an approval. Prior authorization - the process by which a doctor must ask an insurer for permission before a treatment, scan or prescription - is the administrative tax that runs quietly beneath American healthcare. It delays care, buries staff in faxes and portals, and drains billions of dollars a year. Ethermed was built to make it vanish.
Founded in 2021 by Dan Friedman and Michal Such, Ethermed is a business-to-business software company that treats prior authorization as an engineering problem rather than a staffing one. Its platform uses large language models and clinical reasoning to review documentation, interpret each payer's specific rules, and generate compliant submissions automatically. What once took days of back-and-forth is compressed into seconds. As of its 2026 Series A, the company reported that roughly 89% of the authorizations flowing through its system run fully automated.
"Administrative complexity continues to drain billions from healthcare each year," said Friedman, the CEO. "Ethermed was built to eliminate friction between payers and providers." The company's tagline - "Invisibly Uplifting" - captures the ambition: the best version of this software is the one nobody notices, because the paperwork simply handles itself.
Figures reported by Ethermed from its deployments. They describe operational efficiency, but each one maps to a patient waiting - or not waiting - for care.
Hospitals, provider groups and specialty practices drowning in authorization requests. Ethermed intercepts the order and clears the request so staff aren't stuck on hold with insurers.
Payers receive cleaner, more complete submissions the first time, which means fewer back-and-forth cycles and faster, more consistent decisions.
Behind every approval is a person waiting on a scan, a medication or a surgery. Faster turnaround is the whole point - the metrics are patient-outcome numbers in disguise.
The platform handles all authorization types across both medical and pharmacy benefits - retrospective and prospective, single- and multi-line requests.
Ethermed maps a messy human process into four automated steps that run without a separate app or portal - it works inside the tools clinicians already use.
Intercepts the physician's order and analyzes what the payer will require.
Gathers the supporting documentation and compares it against payer guidelines.
Populates the authorization forms with a complete, defensible audit trail.
Submits the request - compliant, documented and ready for a decision.
In AI health tech, the model is table stakes. The hard part is fitting into how hospitals actually work without asking anyone to change their behavior. Ethermed's advantage is less about the intelligence and more about the plumbing: native integrations with Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, iKnowMed and TopDoc, plus availability through the athenahealth Marketplace. The platform is HIPAA compliant and HL7 FHIR interoperable, letting it operate inside existing clinical and payer infrastructure.
That positioning - a neutral translator sitting between two parties who have been at odds for decades - is what separates Ethermed from point tools and from the manual utilization-management teams it competes with. Rather than trying to repair the payer-provider relationship, it makes the handoff between them work. Competitors in the space include Cohere Health, Availity, Rhyme, Myndshft and Anterior, but the largest competitor remains the status quo: authorizations still done by hand.
"Prior authorization is one of those problems everyone in healthcare complains about, but very few companies actually solve in a practical way."
In April 2026, Ethermed closed an $8.5M Series A co-led by Enfield Capital Partners and Blue Marlin Partners, with participation from Jumpstart Ventures, Healthliant Ventures, the Woodard Family Office and Gaingels. It follows a seed round of more than $6.5M, bringing total funding above $15M. The company plans to use the capital to expand its enterprise platform and grow its network of health-system partners.
| Round | Amount | Date | Lead Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | $6.5M+ | Prior to 2026 | Undisclosed |
| Series A | $8.5M | April 2026 | Enfield Capital Partners, Blue Marlin Partners |
"By combining deep clinical intelligence with scalable automation, Ethermed is redefining how prior authorization can work."
"Ethermed caught our attention because they've built something that fits into how health systems actually operate."
Dan Friedman and Michal Such start Ethermed to automate prior authorization and medical-necessity workflows.
The company raises more than $6.5M to build and deploy its platform.
Ethermed connects with Epic, Cerner and athenahealth and expands its customer base across health systems.
Enfield Capital Partners and Blue Marlin Partners co-lead a round pushing total funding past $15M.
The tagline "Invisibly Uplifting" means success looks like nobody noticing the paperwork got done.
Board member Karenann Terrell was previously CIO of Walmart - one of the largest IT operations on earth.
A team of roughly 31 people processes millions of prior-authorization transactions a year.
No new app, no new portal - Ethermed runs inside the systems clinicians already use every day.
Ethermed automates prior authorization in healthcare. Its AI reviews clinical documentation, interprets payer rules, fills out authorization forms and submits them - cutting approval times from days to minutes.
Ethermed was founded in 2021 in Philadelphia by Dan Friedman (CEO) and Michal Such (VP of Engineering), both co-founders.
More than $15M total, including a $6.5M+ seed round and an $8.5M Series A closed in April 2026, co-led by Enfield Capital Partners and Blue Marlin Partners.
Major EHRs including Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, iKnowMed and TopDoc. The platform is HIPAA compliant and HL7 FHIR interoperable.
Health systems, provider groups and payers. As of its 2026 Series A, Ethermed reported roughly nine enterprise customers and processing millions of prior-authorization transactions per year.