Two Medicare AI pilot bids say Palantir serves big insurers

Two companies that applied to run part of Medicare’s AI prior authorization test told the government that big health insurers already use Palantir Technologies software. The claims are in applications the Electronic Frontier Foundation got from CMS through a public records lawsuit and published Oct. 27.

One of the two, Zyter Inc., won. CMS lists it as the WISeR participant for Arizona, working with the Medicare contractor Noridian. Zyter’s application says Palantir is part of its team.

The insurer claims come from the companies that applied. The insurers did not make them, and the records include no insurer contracts.

Why it matters: CMS’s public WISeR list leaves out Palantir, but the winning Arizona bid says its review platform runs on Palantir software.

What Zyter’s application says

Zyter’s application, numbered WISeR-00081, starts on page 123 of EFF’s 340 page release. It describes a consortium of Zyter, “a secure federal-grade software infrastructure provider (Palantir),” and two clinical review groups, AllMed and MRIoA.

On page 126 it says: “Palantir enables secure data integration and decision support for Humana, Aetna, and others.” The same page says Palantir serves CMS, HHS and the VA.

The application says Zyter’s TruCare platform runs on Palantir Foundry and that Zyter works inside Palantir’s FedRAMP environment, the federal cloud security standard.

What Fleet Health’s application says

Fleet Health, Inc., a New York company, also applied in 2025, as WISeR-00053. CMS did not pick it.

On page 264, Fleet calls Palantir a company “specializing in advanced data integration, analytics, and AI-driven decision-making solutions.” It says Palantir’s technology serves “major payer customers such as Humana, Cigna, and Blue Shield of California.”

Fleet said it would build its WISeR system on Palantir’s AIP and Foundry products through the Palantir for Builders program. Its plan used AI agents inside AIP to assess prior authorization requests.

What the white paper adds

The Center for Health & Democracy Education Fund, an advocacy group, published a white paper on the records in October 2026. The newsletter Health Care un-covered announced it Oct. 27.

The paper says the documents identify the use of Palantir systems for “AI-driven decision-making solutions” by Aetna, Humana, Cigna and Blue Shield of California. The records are narrower than that.

That quoted phrase is Fleet’s description of Palantir in general, not of any insurer’s use. Aetna appears only in Zyter’s application.

Cigna and Blue Shield of California appear only in Fleet’s losing bid. Humana appears in both. Neither application says what the insurers use Palantir for beyond “decision support” and data integration.

The paper calls on CMS to wind down WISeR and says AI should not make decisions that change a patient’s care.

What CMS has said about WISeR vendors

WISeR started Jan. 1, 2026 and runs through 2031 in Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington. Six companies review requests for some services in Original Medicare. CMS says they get “a percentage of the expenditures associated with averted wasteful, inappropriate care.”

CMS’s WISeR page names the six companies. It does not list their subcontractors.

The same EFF release shows CMS sent requests for information or corrective action plans to four of the six companies early this year. CMS’s Feb. 27, 2026 letter to Zyter said the agency had reports that “Zyter is not issuing determination letters in a timely manner.”

A CMS deputy administrator said Oct. 15 that “a lot of things about WISeR” are not working, as we reported.

As of Oct. 28, we found no public response to the records from Palantir, Zyter, Humana, Aetna, Cigna, Blue Shield of California or CMS.