Aclarion Partners With PRIA Healthcare to Expand Reimbursement Path for AI Back Pain Platform

Aclarion, the healthcare SaaS platform, has launched a market access program with PRIA Healthcare as the company seeks broader reimbursement coverage and commercial adoption for its AI-powered Nociscan platform, which is designed to help physicians identify sources of chronic low back pain.

The partnership will focus on payer engagement, prior authorization support, appeals management, and reimbursement strategy as Aclarion works to expand patient access to Nociscan across the United States.

According to the company, Nociscan combines magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), proprietary signal processing, biomarkers, and augmented intelligence algorithms to help physicians distinguish between painful and non-painful lumbar discs. The platform analyzes spectroscopy data collected during MRI scans and generates insights intended to support treatment planning and surgical decision-making.

The announcement comes as healthcare companies increasingly look to pair AI-driven diagnostics with evidence generation and reimbursement strategies that support long-term adoption. Similar efforts are underway in other areas of diagnostics where biomarker data and AI models are being used to support clinical decisions, including women's health and disease detection workflows.

"Partnering with PRIA to establish this Market Access Program is a critical milestone as we execute our strategy to achieve payer coverage and expand market access for Nociscan," Brent Ness, CEO of Aclarion, said in a statement.

Ness added that the company plans to continue generating clinical and economic evidence supporting the technology while pursuing sustainable reimbursement pathways.

Building the Payer Infrastructure

PRIA Healthcare will provide support across reimbursement operations, including payer engagement, prior authorization assistance, and appeals management. Aclarion said the collaboration is intended to help physicians and health systems navigate reimbursement processes while generating real-world insights into payer behavior and utilization patterns.

The reimbursement effort follows a series of clinical and commercial milestones for Nociscan. Aclarion said the platform has received approval from three of the four largest private insurance companies in the United Kingdom, which the company views as evidence supporting discussions with U.S. payers.

The company is also conducting the CLARITY trial, a randomized controlled study evaluating whether Nociscan-guided treatment decisions can improve outcomes for patients undergoing surgery for discogenic low back pain.

Clinical validation and reimbursement have become closely linked priorities across healthcare AI. As more technologies move beyond pilot programs, companies are investing in operational and revenue-cycle strategies designed to support broader adoption and payer acceptance.

Linking Evidence to Commercial Adoption

Tonya Dowd, Executive Vice President, Reimbursement, HEMA, and Corporate Development at PRIA Healthcare, said the company will help establish the payer and provider infrastructure needed to support access to the technology.

The partnership marks a new phase in Aclarion's commercialization strategy as it attempts to connect its growing body of clinical evidence with reimbursement mechanisms that can support wider deployment. In a recent peer-reviewed study published in the International Journal of Spine Surgery, researchers reported that MRS biomarkers demonstrated strong agreement with provocative discography findings and were associated with improved surgical outcomes in selected patients.

The company said the market access program is intended to reduce reimbursement barriers while helping providers and payers evaluate the clinical and economic value of the technology. The effort aligns with broader industry demand for measurable outcomes as AI-enabled healthcare tools move into routine clinical practice.