Opinion: Who’s choosing Americans’ medications — doctors or insurers? The bane of prior authorization
New Year’s Day, the day of new beginnings, is a day health care providers like me dread. It starts the annual deluge of requests to renew “prior authorizations” — a bureaucratic tactic that insurers use to see how dedicated we are to the treatments we choose for our patients.
Walking into the office on the first workday after New Year’s Day we’re inundated by voicemail messages and emails from frantic patients unable to obtain refills for their prescriptions. Until we complete those renewal requests — and they’re approved — insurers won’t continue coverage for many medications. In the meantime, patients must either pay for them out of pocket or go without.
