Clover Health becomes first payer to go live on CMS aligned network

Clover Health, a healthcare technology company and payer that provides Medicare Advantage plans, announced that it became the first payer to go live on a CMS aligned network. 

Clover Health partnered with Kno2, a cloud-based healthcare communication platform focused on interoperability, to establish a data exchange workflow aligned with CMS' interoperability goals. The infrastructure is powered by Counterpart Health, Clover's technology and services arm. 

"Under the CMS Aligned Networks framework, Kno2 securely routes patient-directed requests across the network, Counterpart Health enables the standardized exchange of data, and Clover Health responds as the payer with structured clinical and claims information," Clover Health stated in the announcement. 

In July 2025, CMS launched its health tech ecosystem initiative, receiving support from major tech companies and healthcare organizations. Providers, vendors and payers pledged to meet CMS-led interoperability framework criteria and improve information sharing between patients by increasing the availability of personalized tools.  

Part of this initiative consisted of creating CMS aligned networks. In order to be a CMS aligned network, an entity must implement CMS interoperability framework criteria and respond to patient, provider and payer requests in adherence with the interoperability framework. 

Companies such as athenahealth, b.well Connected Health, eClinicalWorks and Epic all pledged to become CMS aligned networks. 

A handful of payers also pledged to participate in these networks, including Clover Health. 

"We believe in a future where seamless care coordination and data-sharing for the patients’ needs are the norm, not the exception and commit to ensuring our patients' health data is accessible wherever and whenever it’s needed for the benefit of the patient," the payer pledge stated. Other pledge signees include UnitedHealth Group, Humana, Aetna and Elevance Health.  

Clover Health said its collaboration with Kno2 has enabled it to begin responding in real time to patient-directed requests for clinical and claims data using standardized FHIR (USCDI v3) formats. 

According to Clover Health, Counterpart Health's software platform, Counterpart Assistant, enabled the company to act quickly on its pledge to participate in a CMS aligned network. 

"Counterpart Assistant was built from the ground up as a bi-directional interoperable platform, already connecting hundreds of data sources. These are not bolt-on capabilities or compliance projects. They are foundational components of how the system operates in production,” Kevin Holub, chief product officer at counterpart health, said in the announcement.  

"When that infrastructure already exists, participating in CMS aligned networks becomes a fast add on benefit, not a build." 

Clover Health hopes that its early adoption signals to the industry that "patient-directed data exchange can be achieved today," the announcement noted. The company will demo an end-to-end response to a patient-authenticated claims data request at HIMSS 2026 next week. 

Jill Hughes has covered health tech news since 2021.