PHOENIX—At Medtrade 2026, Parachute Health, the order management platform for home medical equipment (HME) providers, announced a new initiative designed to strengthen collaboration between HME providers and health plans through a unified digital authorization workflow.
"This is an industry shift," said David Gelbard, CEO of Parachute Health. "Nearly a decade ago, e-prescribing helped HME providers get paid faster by ensuring clinicians submitted clean, structured orders. Today, we're extending that same principle to authorization."
Parachute's collaborative workflow allows HME providers to submit authorization requests digitally, track real-time status updates and tie authorizations back to the original order—reducing preventable rework and improving payment visibility.
"We all struggle to coordinate and communicate efficiently with health plans and benefit managers, which increases administrative overhead and slows service to patients, said Josh Marx, CEO of Medical Service Company. "Having a seamless pathway to secure authorizations and collaborate more effectively with payer partners has long been a challenge. Processes today are inconsistent and clunky, delaying care delivery. A solution that accelerates, streamlines and simplifies these steps is long overdue, particularly one that empowers high-performing HME providers to clearly demonstrate their value within a more transparent, accountable system."
The initiative builds on Parachute's existing e-prescribing and AI intake capabilities, which unify digital and fax-based orders into a single workflow.
HME providers, health plans and benefit managers will continue to define their own network relationships and contractual terms. Parachute serves as the technology platform that connects them, focused on improving workflow efficiency and transparency across the ecosystem.