The Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA) earlier this year launched the Symphony Provider Directory, formerly known as the California Provider Directory Utility (PDU).  As the statewide platform for provider data management, the Symphony Provider Directory streamlines the way plans and providers exchange and reconcile provider information in compliance with state and federal regulatory requirements, including California’s SB 137 (2016).

Funded by a $50 million grant from Blue Shield of California, the Symphony Provider Directory is the result of a cross-industry collaboration of plans, providers, purchasers and regulators. Current participants include Blue Shield of California, Health Net of California, Anthem Blue Cross and Aetna , and more than 50 provider organizations across the state.

The Symphony Provider Directory enables health plans to maintain more up-to-date and accurate information such as provider demographics, panel status and health plan product and network details in their consumer-facing directories so that consumers can make informed decisions about their coverage and care. Symphony's provider data will also be used to populate multi-plan directories such as Covered California's provider directory.

Symphony is designed to reduce provider and plan fatigue by streamlining duplicative processes and relieving the administrative burden of collecting and validating this information.

The more plans and providers that participate, the better the data quality and, ultimately, the better equipped consumers will be when making decisions about their coverage and care. Working towards this goal, IHA aims to achieve a critical mass of participation in the Symphony Provider Directory by 2023, including at least 80 percent of plans and providers in California. To encourage participation in the utility, the Symphony Provider Directory will be fully subsidized for health plans and provider groups for the duration of 2019.

To learn more about the Symphony Provider Directory, see IHA’s free on-demand webinar, “Update on California's Centralized Platform for Provider Data.”