03/16/2022

Prior Authorization: When Insurers Practice Medicine

Want to feel better? You’ll need to get permission first. It’s called prior authorization, and it adds another layer of bureaucracy for patients and health care providers to surmount.

Prior authorization was designed as an administrative tool to “limit the prescribing of non-preferred, usually more expensive, drugs by required providers to obtain pre-approval” from insurance companies in order to receive reimbursement.

Though preventing medication from ending up in the wrong hands and supporting appropriate medication use—the supposed intention of prior authorization—was one of merit, this practice instead placed insurance companies as the arbiter of your pharmaceutical and health care needs, not your physician.

The consequences are faced by patients and providers daily.  READ MORE