DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — After one of Germany's all-time greatest cup shocks, Bayer Leverkusen needs to dust itself off and try to keep the fight for the league title going.
After Leverkusen was stunned 2-1 by third-division Arminia Bielefeld in the German Cup semifinals on Tuesday, the Bundesliga is the only chance for Xabi Alonso’s team to end the season with a trophy. It's a long shot.
Bayern Munich leads Leverkusen by six points with seven games remaining, though Leverkusen can focus solely on the league. Bayern has a slightly trickier Bundesliga schedule and a looming Champions League quarterfinal date with Inter Milan.
— Bayern has a potentially tricky trip to Augsburg on Friday night, having lost twice in the last four years at the home of its local rival.
— Leverkusen plays Heidenheim on Saturday, facing another opponent it should be expected to beat easily but which, like Bielefeld, might have a sting in the tail. Relegation-threatened Heidenheim has won its last two games to climb to 16th.
— Zsolt Low has his first Bundesliga game as Leipzig coach against Hoffenheim on Saturday. Low, formerly an assistant to Thomas Tuchel at Chelsea and Bayern, lost on debut on Wednesday to Stuttgart in the cup semifinals.
— Bayern is used to relying heavily on an irreplaceable English player, but this week the focus is as much on defender Eric Dier as star striker Harry Kane. Squad injuries have put pressure on Dier to combine well with Kim Min-jae at center back.
— Maximilian Beier's form has been key to Niko Kovac's efforts to turn around a disappointing season for 10th-placed Borussia Dortmund. Beier scored twice last week as Dortmund beat Mainz 3-1 and could be important against Freiburg on Saturday.
— The absence of attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz has brought a shift in Leverkusen's tactics and a slump in its results. He's likely to miss out on Saturday, though defender Edmond Tapsoba could reportedly make his return from injury.
— Bayern's defense is stretched after Hiroki Ito broke a bone in his foot last week and became the third Bayern defender to be seriously injured in the space of a week, joining Alphonso Davies and Dayot Upamecano on the sidelines.
— Bayern great Thomas Müller is nearing an exit from the club amid reports he will not be offered a new contract when his current deal expires at the end of the season.
— “Defeats are an important part of development. The team and the club are fundamentally on the right path.” — Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Leverkusen players celebrate after a goal during the German Bundesliga soccer match between Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Bochum at the BayArena in Leverkusen, Germany, Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
SAN FRANCISCO & JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 12, 2026--
Abridge, the leading enterprise-grade AI for clinical conversations, is collaborating with Availity, the nation’s largest real-time health information network, to launch a first-of-its kind prior authorization experience. The engagement uses cutting-edge technology grounded in the clinician-patient conversation to facilitate a more efficient process between clinicians and health plans in medical necessity review.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260112960386/en/
Rather than creating parallel AI systems across healthcare stakeholders, Abridge and Availity are working together to ensure shared clinical context at the point of conversation powers administrative processes, such as prior authorization review and submission, improving outcomes for patients and the teams delivering care.
This collaboration unites two trusted and scaled organizations: combining Abridge’s enterprise-grade AI platform, serving over 200 health systems and projected to support over 80 million patient-clinician conversations in 2026, with Availity’s next-generation, FHIR-native Intelligent Utilization Management solution, which helps payers and providers digitize and operationalize coverage requirements within administrative workflows.
Availity’s FHIR-native APIs enable fast, scalable, and secure connectivity of payer information across the entire healthcare ecosystem. With Abridge’s Contextual Reasoning Engine technology, clinicians can gain visibility into relevant clinical information during the conversation to support documentation aligned with prior authorization requirements.
“At Availity, we’ve invested in building AI-powered, FHIR-native APIs designed to bring clinical policy logic directly into provider workflows,” said Russ Thomas, CEO of Availity. “By embedding our technology at the point of conversation, we’re enabling faster, more transparent utilization management decisions rooted in clinical context. We’re excited to collaborate with Abridge and to demonstrate what’s possible when payer intelligence meets real-time provider workflows.”
The development of real-time prior authorization is just a component of a broader revenue cycle collaboration that is focused on applying real-time conversational intelligence across the patient, provider, and payer experiences. The companies intend to support integration by collaborating on workflow alignment between their respective platforms in the following areas:
“Abridge and Availity are each bringing national scale, deep trust, and a track record of solving important challenges across the care and claims experience to this partnership,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Co-Founder of Abridge. “We’re building real-time bridges between patients, providers, and payers, unlocking shared understanding, focused at the point of conversation.”
About Availity
Availity empowers payers and providers to deliver transformative patient experiences by enabling the seamless exchange of clinical, administrative, and financial information. As the nation's largest real-time health information network, Availity develops intelligent, automated, and interoperable solutions that foster collaboration and shared value across the healthcare ecosystem. With connections to over 95% of payers, more than 3 million providers, and over 2,000 trading partners, Availity provides mission-critical connectivity to drive the future of healthcare innovation. For more information, including an online demonstration, please visit www.availity.com or call 1.800.AVAILITY (282.4548). Follow us on LinkedIn.
About Abridge
Abridge was founded in 2018 to power deeper understanding in healthcare. Abridge is now trusted by more than 200 of the largest and most complex health systems in the U.S. The enterprise-grade AI platform transforms medical conversations into clinically useful and billable documentation at the point of care, reducing administrative burden and clinician burnout while improving patient experience. With deep EHR integration, support for 28+ languages, and 50+ specialties, Abridge is used across a wide range of care settings, including outpatient, emergency department, and inpatient.
Abridge’s enterprise-grade AI platform is purpose-built for healthcare. Supported by Linked Evidence, Abridge is the only solution that maps AI-generated summaries to source data, helping clinicians quickly trust and verify the output. As a pioneer in generative AI for healthcare, Abridge is setting the industry standard for the responsible deployment of AI across health systems.
Abridge was awarded Best in KLAS 2025 for Ambient AI in addition to other accolades, including Forbes 2025 AI 50 List, TIME Best Inventions of 2024, and Fortune’s 2024 AI 50 Innovators.
Abridge and Availity Collaborate to Redefine Payer-Provider Synergy at the Point of Conversation
Abridge and Availity Collaborate to Redefine Payer-Provider Synergy at the Point of Conversation
