How Aligned Marketplace Built a More Reliable Provider Network

Why Accurate Provider Data Matters More Than Ever

Finding a doctor is harder than it should be. On average, members must contact multiple providers before finding one who is actually in-network, accepting new patients, and available for an appointment.

Aligned Marketplace is working to solve that challenge within primary care by connecting employers to a national network of advanced primary care groups focused on access, outcomes, and patient experience. But building a reliable provider network required solving a problem that exists across much of healthcare: inaccurate provider data.

The Challenge of Maintaining Accurate Provider Data

As Aligned Marketplace built its network, the team encountered familiar issues across provider directories and payer systems, including outdated locations, incorrect contact information, and inaccurate in-network status. But one field consistently created the most operational friction: whether providers were actually accepting new patients.

The problem extended across nearly every traditional source of provider information.

Provider websites were often outdated. Insurance portals frequently contained conflicting data. A claims-based approach was considered, but claims data lacked the speed and granularity needed to support real-time member navigation.

The issue was not simply verification.

Provider availability changes constantly, and static data sources struggle to keep pace.

What Live Provider Tracking Revealed

Using Candor’s live provider tracking capabilities, Aligned Marketplace identified major gaps between publicly reported provider availability and real-world status. Even when a provider was listed online as “accepting new patients,” that information proved accurate only about 25% of the time.

That finding changed the nature of the problem.

Inaccurate provider availability was not an occasional edge case. In many cases, it had become the default condition of published provider data.

Beyond new patient acceptance, Aligned also needed visibility into broader provider network changes, including insurance participation, location updates, provider moves, and retirements. Maintaining a reliable network required continuous monitoring instead of periodic verification alone.

Operational Impact

With live provider monitoring in place, Aligned Marketplace is now guiding members to appropriate primary care providers with greater accuracy and less manual effort.

The organization reduced hundreds of hours of ongoing reconciliation work previously required to validate provider availability information across multiple systems. Members also spend less time navigating outdated directories or contacting providers who are unavailable.

The result is a more reliable provider search experience built on continuously updated data instead of static directory snapshots.