Wafik El-Deiry: It’s a shame what happens with prescription drugs due to PA requirements
Wafik El-Deiry, Director of Legorreta Cancer Center at Brown University, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“It’s a shame what happens in today’s healthcare with prescription drugs due to prior authorization (PA) requirements.
When a patient is on multiple medications and an insurance company decides a PA is needed for one of them, that particular medication is held by the pharmacy and not filled.
If no one follows up and if the patient isn’t aware of when the medication runs out, if PA is not resolved as happens not infrequently, the patient will run out and will not be taking their prescribed medication.
It is unconscionable this occurs regularly in the US in 2024. It seems unethical and should be considered criminal.
And it’s not clear to me what is being done nationally to put a stop to it as the PA delays and denials continue.
Insurers have come between patients and doctors and have ruined medicine in the US over the last 3 decades not to mention real harm in situations where patients don’t get their prescribed medications.
This issue clearly contributes to disparities in health care especially when patients don’t have the means to pay for drugs in the face of PA delays and denials.”
Source: Wafik El-Deiry/LinkedIn