How Ochsner and Latent Are Using AI to Fight Denied Authorizations – and Win
Three years ago, Latent and Ochsner Specialty Pharmacy set out with a shared goal: use AI to help more patients get access to the medications they need, faster. What started as a focused effort to reduce the burden of prior authorization review has grown into a deep, collaborative partnership to improve the patient med-access journey—a genuine commitment to the human beings on the other end of every approval. This is what it looks like when technology and clinical expertise grow together.
Where It Started: Prior Authorizations
When Latent first went live with Ochsner, the mission was clear: give pharmacists their time back. Prior authorization review was taking hours that could have been spent with patients. Working side by side, Latent and the Ochsner teams brought review time down to 4–5 minutes per case and increased dispenses per FTE by 39%. This increase in the number of patients served came without any sacrifice of quality or job satisfaction for Ochsner’s Specialty Pharmacy team.
The Next Step: Taking on Appeals
Prior auth is only part of the process. When a request is denied, Ochsner’s pharmacists still have a lot of work ahead of them. The appeals process is one of the most time-consuming parts of specialty pharmacy: pulling together clinical documentation, writing detailed letters of medical necessity, and working through often complicated denial reasons, usually on a tight timeline.
So the natural next step was for Ochsner and Latent to partner on Appeals. Because every denied medication is a patient still waiting, and every minute spent on paperwork is a minute not spent on care.
The Results
To measure the impact, Ochsner's superuser clinical pharmacist group conducted a structured review of 91 Latent-assisted appeals, comparing them against established manual benchmarks:
- Manual appeal writing: 30.6 minutes on average
- Latent-assisted appeal: 7.2 minutes on average (75–80% reduction)
- Total time recovered across 91 appeals: 2,125 minutes, which translates to 35.4 hours or nearly a full workweek reclaimed, and redirected toward what matters most, patient care.
Voices from the Team
Pharmacists using Latent every day have had overwhelmingly positive feedback, especially around its impact on their work and patient care.
Superuser Spotlight
"Latent makes the best use of modern LLMs tailored specifically to the needs of medical writers. With Latent's tools I can navigate complex authorizations more efficiently to get faster approvals for more patients. The Latent team has truly revolutionized the process of prior authorizations and appeals."
Shawn Thomas | Superuser, Specialty Pharmacy, Ochsner Health
"The appeal function has saved me a significant amount of time in my day-to-day workflow by quickly compiling all the necessary data to support medical necessity. It also generates well-written letters of medical necessity for denied prior authorizations, even in cases with complex denial reasons. I am grateful to have this tool, as it allows us to save time and dedicate more attention to our patients."
Courtney Corona | Superuser, Specialty Pharmacy, Ochsner Health
Built Together
Latent and Ochsner have worked side by side from the start, with a real focus on understanding the business, the patients, and what’s needed. That close partnership, along with ongoing feedback from the pharmacists using the product, has helped shape it every step of the way.
Three years in, the mission hasn't changed. It's just grown.
Less time on paperwork. More time with patients. Faster approvals, fewer gaps in care, and a team that's empowered to improve the lives of every patient—with Latent building the tools to make that vision a reality, one step at a time.
