Meaningful Innovation Starts with Collaboration

Obtaining prior authorization for prescription medications can be a necessary step to ensuring patients receive coverage for the treatment they need. However, the process is often burdensome, adding manual, time-consuming tasks to providers’ already heavy workloads.

Physicians and their staff, according to a recent American Medical Association survey reported spending an average of 12 hours a week completing prior authorizations and said that phone was the most commonly used method and virtually all (95%) said that the process increases physician burnout.

The need to innovate and advance technology that improves the process for medication prior authorizations is clear.

Collaboration Leading to Meaningful Innovation

The value of the Surescripts Network Alliance is that our members share the same purpose: improving healthcare for patients and those who care for them.

It also means that two top healthcare organizations and a pharmacy benefit manager recognized an opportunity to collaborate to address the challenges facing clinicians and patients related to prior authorizations for prescription medications. By leveraging innovative technology and clinical intelligence to streamline the administrative process, we worked together to achieve meaningful outcomes.

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Discover how collaboration is driving meaningful innovations for prior authorizations

While the goal of this collaboration was simple: obtain faster approvals while maintaining high standards for clinical integrity and patient safety, the results represent a significant shift that has the potential to meaningfully improve how care is delivered for patients but also reduce the burden on the clinicians who care for them.

According to the case study, Surescripts “technology has reduced approval times, denial rates, and physician abandonment rates, resulting in quicker access for patients to needed medication.”

Innovating Together to Solve Healthcare’s Biggest Challenges

Clinicians who prescribe, including 65% of physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners, as well as 57% of pharmacists, indicated in a survey, that reducing administrative tasks would have the greatest positive impact on patient care and health.

When trusted intelligence on benefits and authorizations is leveraged at the right time, patients get high-quality, affordable prescriptions sooner, creating a better experience that supports better outcomes. And by reducing the time spent sending faxes, obtaining clinical information, and making phone calls, clinicians can spend more time caring for patients.

Expanding the impact of this innovative technology requires continued collaboration across healthcare and remains critical to fulfilling our purpose of helping healthcare heal itself.