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Overview

athenahealth authenticates with 2-legged OAuth (client credentials) for this integration. To authenticate with athenahealth, you will need:
  1. Client ID - The client ID for your registered athenahealth app.
  2. Client Secret - The client secret for your registered athenahealth app.
  3. API Environment - The athenahealth environment to connect to (production or preview).
  4. Practice ID - The ID of the athenahealth practice you’re connecting to.
This guide will walk you through finding these within athenahealth.

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Prerequisites:

  • You must have a registered athenahealth app with client-credentials (2-legged OAuth) enabled.

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Step 1: Registering your app with athenahealth

  1. Apply as a developer or partner with athenahealth to register your application for 2-legged OAuth (client credentials) access. This is a reviewed partner process rather than instant self-serve signup, so factor in an approval timeline before scoping your integration.
  2. Once approved, athenahealth will provide sandbox credentials — a Client ID and Client Secret — for testing.
  3. Production credentials are issued separately, after completing athenahealth’s partner validation process for production access.
Sandbox and production are separate athenahealth apps, each with its own Client ID and Client Secret — they are not interchangeable. Make sure the credentials you enter match the API Environment you select below.

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Step 2: Choose your environment

athenahealth has two environments: production and a preview environment for testing. Decide which one you’re connecting to — you’ll select it as the API Environment in the next step, as api for production or api.preview for preview/testing.

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Step 3: Find your Practice ID

Nearly every athenahealth API endpoint is scoped to a specific practice, so Nango needs your Practice ID to build requests correctly. To find it:
  1. Log in to athenaNet and click your username in the top-right corner.
  2. Your practice name is shown with a number in parentheses next to it — that number is your Practice ID.
You can also find it in your browser’s address bar after logging in, or in the department selection box.

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Step 4: Connect your athenahealth account

Once you have your Client ID, Client Secret, chosen environment, and Practice ID:
  1. Open the form where you need to authenticate with athenahealth.
  2. Select api or api.preview for API Environment.
  3. Enter your Client ID and Client Secret in their respective fields.
  4. Enter your Practice ID.
  5. Submit the form, and you should be successfully authenticated.
athenahealth connection form with Client ID, Client Secret, and API Environment fields You are now connected to athenahealth.