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The Goodman Institute Health Blog

Wednesday Links

Posted on June 14, 2023June 13, 2023 by John C. Goodman

Deaths in local jails due to drug or alcohol intoxication in 2019 was the highest recorded in 20 years. Drugs? Alcohol? In jail?

Yglesias completely loses it over Donald Trump. And he’s not alone.

The downside of prior authorization:  A survey of more than 1,000 physicians found that 93% reported care delays and more than 50% said prior authorizations led to treatment abandonment because of patient hardships navigating the prior authorization process

Quote of the week: DeSantis on Larry Fink:

“Who do these people think they are that they govern our society? Nobody voted for him. And so, our mantra in Florida is no economic or social transformation without representation. These are policies that could not win at the ballot box, and so they’re trying to do through corporate America what they can’t do in the electoral process.”

3 thoughts on “Wednesday Links”

  1. John Fembup says:
    June 14, 2023 at 8:36 am

    AMA objects to prior authorization?

    What a shock.

    My primary care doc, two specialists and a physical therapist I see all have their offices obtain any required pre-auth on my behalf. Often by the time I receive the insurance company’s approval letter, I’ve already seen the provider.

    All of my physicians are affiliated with a single medical system, Hartford Health Care. Obtaining pre-auths is a patient service. Until I read this article I had thought all, or nearly all, medical systems do the same.

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  2. Bob Hertz says:
    June 14, 2023 at 12:37 pm

    According to my brief reading on the subject, the most common calls for prior authorization come from diagnostic imaging, skilled nursing visits, and the use of a brand name drug when a generic drug is available.

    Analysts have said for years that Americans get too much diagnostic imaging. Cutting back is going to cause some anger, especially among the owners of imaging machines.

    There are some people who do need the brand name drug rather than the generic. I just do not know if prior authorization is too harsh in these cases.

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    1. John Fembup says:
      June 21, 2023 at 1:29 pm

      For Rx, if a generic does not work for a patient the way the physician (can happen for a variety of possible reasons) then the insurer will cover the brand. But physician must first go through the steps to get approval. In fact the larger insurers call this process “step therapy”.

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