Reflections from ViVE 2025

ViVE 2025 was a whirlwind of conversations, ideas, and innovations, all centered around the future of healthcare interoperability. Conversations at our booth, sitting in on sessions, and engaging with experts reinforced what we already know: healthcare still has many challenges to solve. 

But it also showed that we’re making real progress. From greater collaboration between government and industry to fixing the prior authorization bottleneck, the industry is moving in the right direction—with some of the key fixes being powered by FHIR. 

Prior Authorization: The Roadblock We’re All Tired Of 

If you talk to anyone in healthcare, prior authorization is almost always at the top of their list of frustrations. It’s slow, complicated, and often delays patient care. The process requires providers to spend excessive time identifying payer-specific coverage criteria and chasing approvals, instead of focusing on patients. Payers, likewise, invest far too many resources into this very manual process. 

A session that really drove this point home was “Prior Authorization: It’s Me, Hi, I’m the Problem, It’s Me.” The title was catchy, but the content was sobering: Medicare Advantage claim denials surged by 56% between 2022 and 2023. That’s an alarming stat that highlights just how inefficient and frustrating the process has become. 

Fortunately, CMS has looked at ways to fix this and is turning to FHIR as the solution. And that’s where we’re looking to support the industry. We were excited to showcase a demo of how our Prior Authorization API and SMART on FHIR app helps automate prior authorization workflows by enabling seamless data exchange between payers and providers, reducing administrative overhead. It was clear from the conversations we had that there was a real appetite for solutions like these. 

Surprisingly, many attendees weren’t fully aware of the latest electronic prior authorization mandates on the horizon. This highlights how rapidly the regulatory landscape is evolving and both the challenge and importance of keeping up. If you have questions about the upcoming requirements and deadlines, our blog on Understanding the Prior Authorization API is a good place to start. 

Quality measures and the never-ending compliance struggle  

As ever, compliance was a hot topic throughout. One session that really underscored this was a great presentation by HealthLX’s CEO Will Tesch “The Ugly Data Challenges of CMS Compliance”. With the introduction of CMS regulations, organizations have struggled to keep up with managing ever increasing healthcare data. 

Another area where regulation is of concern is quality measures—another hot topic at ViVE. Keeping up with evolving regulations, like HEDIS, CMS, and custom measures, adds a heavy administrative burden. 

So, what’s the solution? Solutions that are compliant with regulations and that can integrate with your existing systems instead of adding more complexity. We showcased how FHIR and CQL can help simplify quality measures with a demo of our recently launched Firely dQM—our digital quality measures solution designed to support compliance and calculation of these measures by leveraging FHIR to streamline data collection, validation, and reporting. 

From the conversations we had, it’s clear that the shift toward digital quality measures (dQMs) is gaining serious momentum, particularly for quality measures like HEDIS and CMS. 

“Grabbing the FHIR Baton” 

This session, led by Aneesh Chopra, the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States and current Chief Strategy Officer at Arcadia, highlighted FHIR’s central role in bridging the gap between government and industry. 

One salient point he made is that federal regulations like the 21st Century Cures Act didn’t just come out of nowhere—industry adoption of interoperability standards preceded them. The message was clear: The industry wanted this, because interoperability benefits everyone. However, equally important is the government’s role in driving this change—e.g. TEFCA’s evolving role in enabling national-scale payer-provider data sharing. 

This session highlighted another really exciting trend we’ve been hearing about: the growing focus on digital identity and connecting patients to their data. As more organizations adopt FHIR-based solutions, ensuring that users can securely access their health information will be crucial. This is a space to watch in the coming years, as it could transform how patients interact with their healthcare providers and records. 

Final Thoughts 

ViVE confirmed what we at Firely already know: FHIR is here to stay, and it’s driving real transformation in healthcare. From quality measures to prior authorization and data interoperability, FHIR-based solutions are solving problems that have plagued the industry for years. 

If you’re as excited about the future of FHIR as we are, let’s keep the conversation going. Feel free to get in touch—we’re always happy to collaborate with organizations looking to make healthcare data more accessible, efficient, and useful. 

See you at the next event!