MSK Authorization Will Transition from eviCore to Highmark on May 1, 2026

The management of musculoskeletal (MSK) and interventional pain management (IPM) services is moving from eviCore to Highmark, effective May 1, 2026.

Providers will need to submit MSK and IPM authorization requests via the Authorizations and Referrals process within the Availity Essentials portal. As part of this change, Highmark will leverage Availity’s AuthAI tool to streamline the review of MSK and IPM authorization requests.

To help us provide you with quicker authorization decisions, Highmark is collecting additional information during the initial submission process. Completing these questions upon submission will reduce the amount of follow-up communications, ultimately resulting in faster determinations.

What This Means for You

• By moving this process in-house to Highmark, you will experience a more streamlined auth submission process.
• Direct control over the authorization workflow allows for optimization and elimination of redundancies, leading to faster processing.
• When submitting authorization requests, you may be prompted by Highmark to provide additional information, which will help accelerate the decision-making process.

On-Demand Resources via Availity

Access a recording of a live training webinar on the Availity Learning Center (ALC):

• Log into Availity.
• Go to the Help and Training tab on the homepage.
• Click Get Trained from the dropdown menu to view recorded demos and webinars.
• Select Authorization Request and Follow-up for Highmark Providers – Recording.