Reducing Provider Abrasion: Best Practices for Attestations and Data Use

For many providers, an attestation request is just one more email in a sea of administrative noise. It arrives between lab results, referral updates, claim questions, and scheduling demands. Yet another task that pulls attention away from patients and back into paperwork.

Payers often assume that offering multiple ways to respond—phone, fax, email, portal—creates flexibility. In reality, it creates fragmentation. Every added channel introduces variations in workflow, timing, accuracy, and expectations. Multiply that across payers, and the simplicity providers crave never materializes.

Behind the friction is a deeper pattern: providers are being asked for the same information again and again, through different channels, for different purposes, at different times. If a provider contracts with 12 payers and must attest four times per year, that can easily become 48 different interactions, each with its own format and requirements.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

When attestations are designed to gather the right information in one streamlined interaction—and when that data is used consistently across the organization—both payers and providers benefit. It is an approach based on respecting provider time, not repeating provider tasks.

The Hidden Cost of “Simple” Requests

Every payer needs accurate provider data. Regulatory requirements like the No Surprises Act mandate updates at least every 90 days. Credentialing, network adequacy, contracting, claims adjudication, and directory accuracy all depend on clean, consistent data.

But the process most payers use to obtain this information unintentionally creates abrasion:

• Multiple teams request overlapping data
• Different systems maintain different versions
• Providers receive repetitive or conflicting messages
• Staff must manually reconcile discrepancies

Providers aren’t resistant to attestation for its own sake—they’re resistant to redundancy, inconsistency, and the sense that their effort doesn’t reduce future workload.

When providers see that their updates don’t propagate across workflows, participation drops. When attestations feel like obligations instead of optimizations, response rates fall and data quality suffers.

What’s Left on the Table

When providers disengage from this process, everyone suffers.

Providers see longer credentialing timelines, patients calling with outdated expectations, and claims and auth denials increase. This compounds that feeling that health plans are not an ally in the effort to deliver high quality care.

Payers lose insights that only providers can supply – online sources can tell you that a provider is licensed and that they work for a health network, but they can’t tell you what languages they speak or the hours they’re practicing at the downtown location or if they’re accepting new patients. Losing these insights drive up denial rates, appeal costs, and drive a wedge between health plans and the members they care for.

Patients are tired of finger pointing. These data gaps mean they can’t locate a provider who speaks their language, in their area, and they can trust will be covered by their plan. When denials interrupt care delivery, they don’t care whose fault it is – they care that no one seems to be working to overcome it.

Why Attestations Cause Friction

Provider abrasion doesn’t come from the attestation request alone—it comes from the ecosystem around it. Four issues drive the majority of frustration:

Administrative Overload. Providers juggle dozens of data submissions each year, all with different formats and timelines. The burden compounds across payers, IT systems, and internal teams.

Disjointed Internal Workflows. Inside the payer organization, credentialing, directories, contracting, and operations often manage provider data independently. That means different fields, different business rules, different cadences, and different channels

What feels like “one update” to a provider becomes “four separate processes” internally.

One-Way Engagement. Most attestation processes push requests out and hope for responses. Providers rarely see what data the payer already has, know why a particular update matters, or understand how the data will be used. The experience feels like an audit, not support.

Low Trust in Impact. When updates don’t appear across systems—or when the same question is asked again—providers lose confidence that attestation has value.

From Friction to Flow: What Modern Attestations Look Like

Modernizing attestation isn’t about adopting a portal or adding automation. It’s a design philosophy rooted in three principles: unify, simplify, and reuse.

Unified Cadence. Synchronize attestation requests so they serve multiple workflows:

• Directory management
• Credentialing intake
• Contracting updates
• Network adequacy

One request should serve as many needs as possible.

• Prioritized, Contextualized Requests. Providers should see what matters most now, not scroll through fields that don’t need attention.
• Pre-Filled, Transparent Data. Show providers what you already know. Let them confirm or tweak. This reduces work and builds trust.
• Embedded in Workflow. Providers are far more likely to complete a task when it appears inside their existing processes—not as a separate form or a one-off request.
• Multi-Payer Efficiency. When a single attestation can support multiple payers, providers immediately understand the value of participation and adoption increases dramatically.

Modern attestation replaces guesswork with clarity, fragmentation with consistency, and redundancy with respect for provider time.

Making Provider Data Work Harder

Attestation is often treated as the end of the process. In reality, it should be the beginning.

Close the Loop. Provider-submitted data should flow into the processes where it has the highest operational impact:

• Claims determinations
• Prior authorization routing
• Reimbursement accuracy
• Contracting and fee schedules
• Network adequacy assessments

When updated data reduces denials and appeals, prevents provider calls, or accelerates credentialing, providers feel the benefit of their effort.

Build a Golden Record. A unified, accurate, attested provider record reduces confusion across the enterprise. It prevents:

• Duplicates
• Conflicting versions
• Manual reconciliations
• Delays due to missing or outdated data
• Duplicate requests from one payer

One high-quality source of truth improves decision-making everywhere it’s used.

Empower Internal Teams. With real-time dashboards and validation logic:

• Credentialing teams process faster
• Network teams target gaps more accurately
• Provider relations teams reduce call burden

Cleaner data is fuel for better operations.

Promote Trust. When providers see their corrections reflected across touchpoints—from directories to claims—they perceive the payer as attentive, responsive, and reliable.

Best Practices for Reducing Provider Abrasion

To convert attestation from a compliance task into a value-building interaction, payers should:

Start with Empathy. Acknowledge provider workload. A simple line like, “We put your data to work for you,” sets the tone.

Reduce Cognitive Load. Make it easy to see:

• What needs attention
• What’s already correct
• What’s changed since last time

Consolidate Requests. Align internal teams so providers experience one coordinated touchpoint—not multiple disconnected ones.

Clarify the Value. Explain how updated information:

• Powers faster claims
• Improves directory accuracy
• Reduces future outreach

Automate Where it Matters. Use automation for:

• Data validation
• Reminders
• Behavioral prompts
• Smart alerts for likely changes

Reserve human touch for exceptions.

Measure Engagement, Not Just Compliance. Track and report back on:

• Response rates
• Data quality
• Update velocity
• Provider satisfaction indicators

Close the Feedback Loop. Show providers how their updates were used. When they see impact, participation rises.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Provider Interaction

As payers modernize data strategies, we’re moving toward:

• Continuous attestation embedded in workflow
• Unified data governance across credentialing, directories, contracting, and claims
• Golden records that evolve in real time
• Structured, interoperable data models that can power analytics, AI, and automated decisioning

In this future, attestation isn’t a task. It’s the quiet mechanism behind smoother operations, less friction, and more meaningful provider relationships.

Availity – Your Partner in Provider Satisfaction

Availity’s Provider Data Management (PDM) modernizes provider engagement for simpler, more effective health plan results:

• Details about their services only they can provide
• Higher provider satisfaction
• Expanded data sets for more of your needs
• Whole-network access across more of your provider mix

If you’re ready to take the next step on the provider data journey, we would love to hear from you.