Candid Health vs Athelas at a glance
| Candid Health | Athelas | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Digital health companies, MSOs, medical groups and billing companies with their own billers | Independent outpatient practices, especially therapy, orthopedics and primary care |
| What you buy | Claims automation platform, with optional services | Managed billing service, plus an optional EHR, AI scribe and voice agents |
| Starting price | Not published | Not published |
| Pricing model | Custom quote | Quote only; fee basis not disclosed |
| Who does the billing | Your team, with Candid handling automated claim work and exceptions flagged to staff | Athelas staff and automation |
| EHR connections | Pre-built for Healthie, Elation, Canvas, Medplum, Develo and others; open APIs | athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, NextGen, MEDITECH, Cerner, AdvancedMD, Tebra, WebPT, DrChrono, Elation and others |
| Other services | Eligibility, credentialing, lockbox, patient collections; Stripe for payments | Eligibility, coding checks, AI appeals, payment posting, patient payments and an AI collections voice agent |
| Security | SOC 1 Type 1 report with a clean opinion (March 2026); signs BAAs with provider customers | Trust center lists HIPAA and SOC 2 Type II audits, marked 'in progress / certified'; BAA terms not published |
| Main drawback | Needs an integration or engineering help; not for small practices | Outcome data comes from vendor case studies; less control over billing |
Key differences
Software for your billers versus a billing team for hire
Candid Health sells software. Claims arrive from your EHR, Candid checks them against rules, submits them, follows them to payment and flags exceptions to your staff. It tracks measures such as touchless claim rate and payer net collection rate. Candid also offers services for work that still needs people, but it assumes you run your own revenue cycle. Athelas sells the outcome. Its RCM managed service handles eligibility, charge capture, claim submission, denial appeals, reconciliation and collections, so the practice does not need its own billers.
Who each one is built for
Candid markets to medical groups, MSOs, digital health companies and billing services. Its strengths, such as APIs and multi-state claim automation, matter most to organizations that bill many payers across states or build their own software. Athelas targets independent outpatient practices. Its case studies lean toward physical therapy, and its integration list includes therapy EHRs such as WebPT alongside athenahealth, eClinicalWorks and AdvancedMD. A small practice will usually find Athelas easier to buy and Candid more than it needs.
Integration and setup
Candid connects through pre-built EHR integrations, including Healthie, Elation, Canvas, Medplum and Develo, or through its APIs, which usually needs engineering work. Athelas integrates with a long list of mainstream ambulatory EHRs and asks you to contact it if yours is missing. It also sells its own Air EHR with billing built in. Elation is on both lists.
Competitors, not partners
The two companies compete directly. HLTH's report on Candid's $120 million Series D in July 2026 named Commure, Athelas's parent company, as a competitor. Both are pushing toward claims that move through the system without manual work. Athelas claims 90% of claims need no human touch, 63% fewer denials and A/R days down from 42 to 18. Candid's homepage defines its metrics but publishes no figures. Treat all such numbers as vendor claims and ask for references.
Security and contracts
Candid says it signs business associate agreements with provider customers. In March 2026 it announced a Type 1 SOC 1 examination with a clean opinion. Athelas's trust center describes AES-256 encryption at rest and TLS 1.2 or higher in transit, and lists HIPAA and SOC 2 Type II audits without saying whether they are finished. Neither publishes prices. Ask each how the fee is calculated, what the minimum term is, and whether setup or integration costs extra.
Which should you choose?
The question is whether you want to keep a billing team. Organizations that bill at scale with their own staff and technology are Candid's market. Practices that want billing off their plate are Athelas's.
Choose Candid Health if:
- You are a digital health company, MSO, multi-state group or billing company
- You have an in-house RCM team and want software to remove manual claim work
- Your EHR is Healthie, Elation, Canvas or Medplum, or you have engineers to use the API
Choose Athelas if:
- You are an independent outpatient practice without, or tired of managing, in-house billers
- Your EHR is a mainstream ambulatory system such as athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, AdvancedMD or WebPT
- You want one vendor that could also supply an AI scribe, phone agents or an EHR
Groups that want a mature claims and clearinghouse platform can also compare Waystar, and teams that want to build their own workflow on per-claim pricing can look at Stedi.