The Trust Gap in Healthcare: How Provider Data Became a Relationship Issue

In healthcare, trust has always been the quiet currency that keeps the system moving. Providers trust that payers will reimburse fairly. Payers trust that providers deliver care that meets standards. Patients trust that both sides are working together to make care accessible and affordable.

But that trust is under strain — not because of policy disputes or payment models, but because of something far more foundational: data.

Despite years of investment in digital transformation, healthcare still struggles with disconnected systems and fragmented data. For provider data in particular, the results are familiar. Providers receive duplicate requests for the same information. Health plans spend millions verifying and correcting data that providers have already supplied. And patients encounter outdated directories or denied claims based on incomplete or inaccurate records.

What began as a data quality issue has quietly evolved into a relationship problem.

When Inaccurate Data Breaks the Human Connection

For health plans, provider data is the engine behind nearly every administrative process — from credentialing and contracting to claims adjudication and quality measurement. Yet too often, those processes operate in isolation, using different systems and standards.

When those silos fail to communicate, providers are left facing a barrage of redundant outreach. They might update a phone number for credentialing, only to be asked to confirm it again weeks later for a directory review. Over time, this repetition erodes trust. Providers begin to view each request as another burden rather than a partnership.

Health plans, in turn, face low attestation rates and over-rely on databases with narrow views of their providers. While patients care that their doctor is licensed in their state – right now they are fighting to understand when their specific doctor is treating patients at their neighborhood location.

And because data accuracy underpins compliance and member access, patients ultimately feel the impact through outdated directories, delayed authorizations, or incorrect denials.

The breakdown in trust extends far beyond technology. It signals a misalignment between how data is collected and how it’s used to serve everyone involved.

Trust is Built on Use, Not Requests

The core issue is not that providers are unwilling to participate. It’s that too often, they don’t see the benefit. When attestations vanish into a black hole of disconnected systems, or when corrections don’t prevent future errors, participation feels futile.

Trust grows when providers can feel how their input helps their business and care delivery – onboard faster, resolve claims more smoothly, or reach new patients through accurate network listings.

Health plans that close this loop demonstrate that data sharing is not a compliance chore, but a collaborative act. By showing providers how their verified data fuels faster approvals and reduces rework, they turn a transactional process into a trust-building moment.

When that happens, participation rates rise, and so does satisfaction.

The Experience Issue Behind the Trust Gap

At its heart, the trust problem is an experience problem. Each time a provider is asked to submit information that has already been verified, it signals a system that values process over partnership. Each time a patient is directed to an out-of-network provider, or gets a surprise out-of-network bill, it exposes the cost of poor data stewardship.

Experience is shaped by what people feel in those moments: frustration, uncertainty, and ultimately, distrust.

Closing the trust gap requires reimagining provider data workflows and use around clarity and reciprocity. Providers should have intuitive, consistent paths to attest and maintain their information. Health plans should make it easy to reuse verified data across credentialing, directories, and contracting instead of asking for the same details again. Patients should be able to rely on that shared data as a trusted source of truth about their network.

In other words, better experiences for all parties are built on trusted, shared data.

Rebuilding Trust Through Shared Accountability

For health plans, solving this challenge means more than adopting new tools. It means reframing data accuracy as a shared responsibility and a shared reward.

Three principles can help close the gap:

1. Simplify participation. Align the multiple requests to consolidate, automate, and pre-fill information that eliminates redundancy.
2. Build reciprocity. Treat provider data as a shared asset, not a payer-owned record, and commit to maintaining its quality together.
3. Show impact. Use the provider’s work more widely and demonstrate how verified data improves outcomes, whether that means faster credentialing, fewer denials, or reduced provider abrasion.

When providers understand that their efforts directly improve their own experience — and when payers view providers as co-stewards of accuracy — trust becomes the natural outcome.

From Compliance to Confidence

Regulations will continue to evolve, and data accuracy mandates will only grow more stringent. But compliance alone is not enough to sustain healthcare’s future.

The real opportunity lies in creating a healthcare ecosystem where every participant can rely on the same, trusted data to drive better decisions and better experiences.

Trust may begin with data, but it extends to every interaction that data enables: smoother onboarding, faster authorizations, more reliable directories, and ultimately, more seamless care.

When health plans give providers simpler, clearer paths to attest and ensure their data is used meaningfully, satisfaction improves and costs decline. And when providers trust that their information is accurate, visible, and valued, the entire healthcare system becomes stronger.

In the end, trust is not an abstract goal. It is the product of experience. And it is the foundation for a healthcare ecosystem built for better.

Ready to evolve your provider data approach?

Availity’s Provider Data Management (PDM) is built for better outcomes by keeping provider experience squarely in our sights for all of its benefits to health plans and the market at large:

• A provider experience built to reduce burden and communication overload
• Deeper data insights only they know – when, where, and how their providers offer care
• A comprehensive golden record that powers health plan business
• A whole-network approach that meets your providers where they operate

If your health plan is ready to take your provider data to the next level, let us know by contacting us here.