The most up-to-date, comprehensive, and accurate source of data. Your organization can access profiles of every active provider in the U.S.—over 6 million.
See how we’ve helped leading healthcare organizations achieve significant cost savings, improve data accuracy, and enhance patient care. Here, you will find our results, research, reports, and everything else our scientists are testing in the Veda Lab – no lab coat required.
At Veda we understand that every data point is an opportunity to improve the healthcare experience. And we can see the potential when data is no longer a barrier.
Healthcare organizations today face an immense challenge: ensuring data accuracy and accessibility in a complex, often fragmented industry. Meghan Gaffney, CEO of Veda Data Solutions, is tackling these healthcare data challenges head-on.
In a recent episode of the Healthcare Strategy Podcast, Gaffney, whose unique journey spans nearly 15 years in healthcare policy to tech entrepreneurship, discussed how AI-driven healthcare solutions can bridge critical gaps.
Meghan covers the impact Veda’s technology has had on healthcare organizations. Please read about our automation, which saves money and improves the member experience.
Dr. Bob Lindner is the Chief Science and Technology Officer at Veda, a company addressing provider directory data challenges.
It’s no surprise to anyone who works with data—it’s messy. In every industry and every business, there are data anomalies and issues that can impact the story data tells. If we have any hope of improving data practices and making collected data truly actionable, we first have to acknowledge its limitations and then explore modern solutions for improving it.
Bad Data Is The Norm
With the new federal administration exploring cost-cutting measures and releasing data nearly daily, a specific example caught my eye—it was a Social Security disbursements by age graph, with the data suggesting 210 year olds are receiving Social Security entitlements. As a data scientist who has been working with healthcare data for over 10 years, this graph wasn’t shocking to me.
I recently saw one dermatologist who was practicing at 20 different variations of one address; imagine the extra legwork required by a patient to find out where you are booking an appointment. Or how about two providers with the exact same name but one is a veterinarian on the West Coast and the other is a physician in New York? There is state licensing info for both of them, but the only one with a federal National Provider Identifier (NPI) is the veterinarian. These are complex data problems occurring every day.
Data engineers know that a lot of data in every industry is collected manually, and this often introduces errors that are quickly propagated and magnified throughout downstream processes. In fact, most data systems in the modern economy, all around the globe, have shockingly out-of-date practices. With a spotlight on data issues right now, it’s important to dig deeper and examine data processes to have any hope of modernizing databases and making data functional.
Digital Health Transformers podcast host Gregory Cave is joined by Meghan Gaffney, CEO and Co-Founder of Veda. She discusses the importance of accurate provider data, the challenges patients face in accessing specialized care, and how AI is transforming healthcare operations. Meghan explains how Veda automates the transfer of provider data to health plans, helping patients find in-network providers quickly and efficiently.
Meghan covers the impact Veda’s technology has had on healthcare organizations-read about our automation that saves money and improves member experience.
Deepfakes Can Damage Businesses—Here’s How To Fight Back
Deepfakes—AI-generated synthetic media in which visuals or audio are manipulated to create deceptively realistic content—are often discussed in terms of their impact on the public’s perception of current events, but they pose a growing threat to businesses as well. Created and leveraged by unscrupulous actors, deepfakes can enable fraud, perpetuate misinformation and cause lasting brand damage.
Whether they take the form of a fabricated video, cloned voice or contrived image, deepfakes can erode trust and disrupt operations in ways many companies aren’t prepared for. Members of Forbes Technology Council discuss some of the specific ways deepfakes could be used to hurt a company and what leaders can do to defend their organizations (or respond when a deepfake succeeds).
Regularly Review Employee LinkedIn Profiles
“We’ve noticed LinkedIn profiles for people who claim to work at our company but who don’t or never have. Such deepfake profiles damage our company because our people, our reputation and our brand are being abused. Leaders can respond to this specific use of deepfakes by periodically reviewing all “employees” of your company. Look for surprises and flag the frauds for review by LinkedIn.” – Robert Lindner, Veda
New in 2025: CMS Standards for Initial Appointment Wait Times
How to achieve compliance with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) wait time standards
The healthcare landscape just got more demanding. Starting January 1, 2025, Qualified Health Plan (QHP) issuers on the federal exchanges must meet strict new standards for initial appointment wait times. This means proving that 90% of the time, new patients can schedule primary care and behavioral health appointments within 15 and 10 days, respectively. Fail to comply? You’ll need to expand your network.
Decoding the New Appointment Wait Time Standards
CMS is tackling the growing problem of long wait times head-on. The new standards, which must be assessed by a third party unaffiliated with the health plan (more on that below), require QHPs to demonstrate timely access to care. Here’s a breakdown of the standards:
Primary Care: Appointments within 15 days
Behavioral Health: Appointments within 10 days
90% Compliance Target: Health plans must meet this target with a confidence level of +/- 5% or face mandatory network expansion.
Specialists will be surveyed in future years and that standard will be 30 days.
The Stakes Are High: Why CMS is Prioritizing Wait Times
Long wait times create barriers to care, frustrate patients, and can have serious consequences for health outcomes. As the media has reported, in some cases, patients are not able to schedule an appointment for 6-12 months from the first time they reach out for care.
The completed surveys must be submitted to CMS with compliance rates, percentage of non-responsive providers, and contracts with third-party entities. Submissions are due in mid-June.
Veda: Your Partner in Achieving and Exceeding CMS Compliance
Veda’s proprietary provider data technology can help QHPs meet and exceed the wait time standards issued by CMS.
Meeting these new standards requires accurate, real-time data on provider availability. This is where Veda shines.
The first step in ensuring you can deliver on wait time requirements is auditing your directories for accurate provider-at-location data and keeping those records current.
Then, Veda can help you identify and strategically fill gaps in your network for known provider needs (from an adequacy perspective), particularly PCPs and Telehealth. This will ensure adequate access to care across all specialties and service areas.
Veda’s Dashboard: Your CMS Audit Command Center
Veda’s intuitive dashboard provides a clear, real-time view of your provider data accuracy. View your performance through a simulated CMS audit score, identify areas for improvement, and take proactive steps to ensure compliance.
Offering profiles on providers and roster automation, Veda offers true directory accuracy for providers, facilities, and groups. Veda’s solutions can help you not only meet the new CMS wait time standards but exceed them, all while enhancing your member satisfaction and solidifying your position in the market.
In this episode, #MillenniumLive is joined by Dr. Bob Lindner, Chief Science & Technology Officer and Co-Founder at Veda, for a deep dive into the fascinating world of artificial intelligence (AI). Bob shares his insights on what excites him most about AI development, exploring the balance between innovation and responsibility. Tune in as Bob discusses the differences between supervised and unsupervised learning, the critical role of data science in AI modeling, and why modeling is essential to delivering impactful results.
We’ll look at the future of healthcare data and the challenges it faces, and how Veda is positioned to lead the charge in transforming the industry. Whether you’re an AI enthusiast or just curious about the technology shaping our future, this episode is packed with knowledge, thought-provoking discussions, and practical advice for businesses exploring AI solutions.
Q&A with Bob Lindner on why sustainably-fed AI models are the path forward
As an AI company powered by our proprietary data training AI models, the article, “When A.I.’s Output Is a Threat to A.I. Itself,” in the New York Times caught our eye. Illustrating exactly what happens when you make a copy of a copy, the article lays out the problems that arise when AI-created inputs generate AI-created outputs and repeat…and repeat.
Veda focuses on having the right sources and the right training data to solve provider data challenges. A data processing system is only as good as the data it’s trained on; if the training data becomes stale—or, is a copy of a copy—inaccurate outputs will likely result.
We asked Veda’s Chief Science & Technology Officer, Bob Lindner, PhD, for his thoughts on AI-model training, AI inputs, and what happens if you rely too heavily on one source.
Veda doesn’t use payers’ directories as inputs in its AI and data training models. Why not?
At Veda, we use what we call “sustainably-fed models.” This means we use hundreds of thousands of input sources to feed our provider directory models. However, there is one kind of source we don’t use: payer-provided directories.
Provider directories are made by health plans that are spending millions of dollars of effort to make them. By lifting that data directly into Veda’s AI learning model, we would permanently depend on ongoing spending from the payers.
We aim to build accurate provider directories that allow the payers to stop expensive administrative efforts. A system that depends on payer-collected data isn’t useful in the long term as that data will go away.
The models will begin ingesting data that was generated by models and you will experience quality decay just like the New York Times article describes. We use sustainably sourced inputs that won’t be contaminated or affected by the model outputs.
Veda does the work and collects first party sources that stand independently without requiring the payer directories as inputs.
Beyond the data integrity problems, if you are using payers’ directories to power directory cleaning for other payers, you are effectively lifting the hard work from payer 1 and using it to help payer 2, potentially running into data sharing agreement problems. This is another risk of cavalier machine learning applications—unauthorized use of the data powering them.
Can you give us an analogy to describe how problematic this really is?
Imagine we make chocolate and we are telling Hershey that they should just sell our chocolate because it’s way better than their own. We tell them, “You could save a lot of money by not making it yourselves anymore.”
However, we make our chocolate by buying a ton of Hershey’s chocolate, remelting it with some new ingredients, and casting it into a different shape.
In the beginning, everything is fine. Hershey loves the new bar and they’re saving money because we’re doing the manufacturing. Eventually, they turn off their own production. Now, with the production turned off, we can’t make our chocolate either. The model falls apart and in the end, no one has any chocolate. A real recipe for disaster.
August 13, 2024 – Veda Data Solutions, healthcare’s leading AI provider data platform, was named No. 417 on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list revealed today.
Among software companies, Veda was ranked 47th and the Madison, Wis.-based company was the 4th highest-ranked company on the list from Wisconsin. This is Veda’s second consecutive year on the Inc. 5000 list.
“At Veda, we are committed to improving the healthcare experience by creating the most accurate, curated provider data on the market and partnering with health plans and provider organizations to ensure their members have seamless access to appropriate care,” said Meghan Gaffney, CEO and co-founder of Veda. “Being named in the top 10 percent of high growth companies validates our solution and reflects the value our customers place on member satisfaction, patient access to care, and their commitment to delivering on Medicaid and Medicare requirements.”
The Inc. 5000 class of 2024 represents companies that have driven rapid revenue growth while navigating inflationary pressure, the rising costs of capital, and seemingly intractable hiring challenges. Among this year’s top 500 companies, the average median three-year revenue growth rate is 1,637 percent. In all, this year’s Inc. 5000 companies have added 874,458 jobs to the economy over the past three years.
“Veda is committed to Health Equity, and creating the most accurate provider data is how we make good on that promise,” said Gaffney. “I am so proud of our customers and team members who ensure members have access to timely, high-quality care.”
For complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, location, and other criteria, go to www.inc.com/inc5000. All 5,000 companies are featured on Inc.com starting Tuesday, August 13, and the top 500 appear in the new issue of Inc. magazine, available on newsstands beginning Tuesday, August 20.
“One of the greatest joys of my job is going through the Inc. 5000 list,” says Mike Hofman, who recently joined Inc. as editor-in-chief. “To see all of the intriguing and surprising ways that companies are transforming sectors, from health care and AI to apparel and pet food, is fascinating for me as a journalist and storyteller. Congratulations to this year’s honorees, as well, for growing their businesses fast despite the economic disruption we all faced over the past three years, from supply chain woes to inflation to changes in the workforce.”
About Veda
Veda blends science and imagination to solve healthcare’s most complex data issues. Through human-in-the-loop Smart Automation, our solutions dramatically increase productivity, enable compliance, and empower healthcare businesses to focus on delivering care. Veda is simple to use and requires no technical skills or drastic system changes because we envision a future for healthcare where data isn’t a barrier—it’s an opportunity. To learn more about Veda, follow us on LinkedIn.
More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000
Methodology
Companies on the 2024 Inc. 5000 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2020 to 2023. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2020. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2023. (Since then, some on the list may have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2020 is $100,000; the minimum for 2023 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Growth rates used to determine company rankings were calculated to four decimal places.
About Inc.
Inc. Business Media is the leading multimedia brand for entrepreneurs. Through its journalism, Inc. aims to inform, educate, and elevate the profile of our community: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters who are creating our future. Inc.’s award-winning work achieves a monthly brand footprint of more than 40 million across a variety of channels, including events, print, digital, video, podcasts, newsletters, and social media. Its proprietary Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since its launch as the Inc. 100 in 1982, analyzes company data to rank the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The recognition that comes with inclusion on this and other prestigious Inc. lists, such as Female Founders and Power Partners, gives the founders of top businesses the opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. For more information, visit www.inc.com.
MAY 6, 2024 – MADISON, WI – Veda, a leading health technology company specializing in provider data solutions, announced today that it has achieved third-party validation from the prestigious Erdős Institute, an independent organization of university PhDs advancing the fields of Data Science and Machine Learning.
Following a blind independent review of Veda’s AI-powered data curation engine—the backbone of its product stack—Erdős Institute researchers found highly accurate provider directory data with certain accuracy scores exceeding 90 percent for critical information like addresses, locations, and phone numbers.
By facilitating accurate provider directory data, as mandated by the No Surprises Act, validation of Veda’s proprietary curation and machine learning methodologies represents a pivotal milestone in Veda’s journey towards fostering greater transparency and accountability in payer data solutions.
“As skepticism surrounds AI tools in healthcare, validation from the Erdős Institute underscores Veda’s commitment to leading the market with ethical and reliable solutions,” said Meghan Gaffney, Co-Founder and CEO of Veda. “While outdated methods for maintaining accuracy and compliance continue to fail, Veda is proof positive that automation is an effective and necessary approach to supporting health plan members who rely on provider directories to find care.”
A rigorous analysis by Erdős not only demonstrates Veda’s commitment to AI excellence but also sheds light on the prevalent issue of ‘ghost networks,’ or inaccurate provider directories. Yale Law and Policy Review found between forty-five and fifty-two percent of provider directory listings had errors, with some individual plans having error rates as high as ninety-eight percent.
Increased pressure on state and federal lawmakers to protect seniors from surprise medical bills and improve access to mental health treatment has spurred a wave of bipartisan legislation seeking to hold commercial and Medicare Advantage plans accountable.
In a crowded marketplace of payer solutions, the independent validation from Erdős sets a new benchmark for accuracy and compliance.
“Our blinded study found that Veda’s data-driven automation is capable of producing accurate provider data quickly and efficiently,” said Roman Holowinsky, PhD, Managing Director of the Erdős Institute. “Automated, real-time provider datasets like Veda’s can greatly benefit the market and save users a lot of time over manual attestation or intervention.”
The Erdős Institute is a multi-university collaboration focused on helping PhDs get jobs they love at every stage of their career. Founded in 2017, the Institute helps train and place a diverse pool of PhDs through boot camps, workshops, mini-courses, consulting opportunities, and direct employer connections. For more information, visit www.erdosinstitute.org.
About Veda:Veda blends science and imagination to solve healthcare’s most complex data issues. Through human-in-the-loop Smart Automation, our solutions dramatically increase productivity, enable compliance and empower healthcare businesses to focus on delivering care. Veda is simple to use and requires no technical skills or drastic system changes, because we envision a future for healthcare where data isn’t a barrier—it’s an opportunity. To learn more about Veda, visit vedadata.com.
Provider Data Accuracy Verified By Third-Party Audit
Independent Audit Says Veda’s AI Precision Exceeds 90%, Solving Ghost Networks and Payer Network Attestation Challenges
Veda is paving the way for improved data quality, transparency, and accountability in healthcare through continuous validation and testing of our AI-powered solutions. Our scientific rigor commits us to continuously testing our methodology and we believe all AI-powered data solutions should undergo an unbiased independent validation of their data. Learn about our approach to healthcare data challenges and the third-party study performed by Erdős Institute proving our data accuracy.
Provider data management is inherently flawed. The information found in provider directories is often manually updated, the scope of required information keeps expanding and information changes often; practices move, physicians change practices, and contracts between practices and health plans expire. Multiple industry reports state between 20% and 30% of directory information changes annually.
With provider data accuracy rates of 90+%, the study highlights the potential of automation and machine learning in achieving high levels of data accuracy
Reinforcing Commitment to Accountable AI-Powered Solutions in Healthcare
To prove our products and approach to provider directory accuracy are best-in-class, the Erdős Institute conducted a blind third-party audit of Veda’s Vectyr product.
Vectyr is Veda’s curated dataset that powers all our provider data products. With Vectyr’s continuously monitored and validated data, Veda customers can quickly find correct provider information with the confidence of Veda’s optimal accuracy. Many back-office workflows—like directory management, credentialing, and claims—need access to accurate, up-to-date provider information. Our Vectyr product curates data from over 300,000 sources including NPPES, DEA, and state licensing organizations.
Why validate with impartial analysis?
As a leader in the industry, armed with proprietary solutions, we understand the key to solving complex healthcare problems lies in innovative technology. We’re taking the lead again, this time via rigorous third-party validation. By subjecting our technology to impartial analysis we’re taking a step forward in the evolution towards greater transparency.
Employing rigorous methodologies and independent sampling techniques, ensuring an unbiased assessment of provider directory accuracy? Sounds like our scientific approach to everything we do. Additionally, having an independent institute like Erdős conduct the validation study safeguards against potential conflicts of interest and ensures the credibility and integrity of the findings.
Erdõs’ Method for Proving Accuracy
To gauge provider data accuracy, Erdős and Veda simulated a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “secret shopper” audit. Callers attempted to make an appointment on behalf of a patient and collect information that would be necessary to do so: the phone number and location of the provider (which are typically major areas of inaccuracies). The audit provided a measure for the main appointment information and manual research was used to measure more detailed provider information.
To reduce bias in the CMS simulation, Erdős created a sample of NPIs for the measurement. The selection of the sample was aimed to be representative with respect to geographic categories of rural and urban and focused on stratified sampling by specialty. In the total sample, 184 NPIs were called. Of these 184 NPIs, 92 phone numbers and 118 locations could be assessed.
The call-based outcomes found phone and address accuracy are consistent at 90%. Moreover, Erdős found that additional Vectyr fields were also highly accurate. For example, the Vectyr database demonstrated accuracy levels of 99% for fields such as languages spoken. With provider data accuracy rates of 90+%, the study highlights the potential of automation and machine learning in achieving high levels of data accuracy.
Reinforcing Commitment to Accountable AI-Powered Solutions in Healthcare
With a commitment to accountable AI-powered solutions and five approved patents in the industry, we believe all healthcare data vendors need to think more rigorously about what “correct” data means. Attestation does not create quality data. Patients don’t need attested data, they need correct data. Therefore, data vendors must measure performance the same way patients do: making an appointment on the first try, with the correct information. We promise accuracy, and we deliver.
Veda’s provider data solutions help healthcare organizations reduce manual work, meet compliance requirements, and improve member experience through accurate provider directories. Select your path to accurate data.
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