Health insurers to promise improved pre-approval process, WSJ reports

Major healthcare insurers will promise to take steps meant to smooth the controversial pre-approval process that can deny or delay access to care in an initiative set to be unveiled early next week, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal’s Anna Wilde Mathews. Insurers will promise to ease prior authorization rules by creating a common standard for submitting electronic requests by the start of 2027 and will also pledge that 80% of electronic requests will be answered in real time by 2027, though only if the submissions include needed documentation, according to the report. The industry pact, however, may not go far enough to assuage doctors and patients who say that insurers sometimes create a barrier to needed care, the Journal added. Publicly traded companies in the health insurance space include CVS Health (CVS), Centene (CNC), Cigna (CI), Elevance Health (ELV), Humana (HUM), Molina Healthcare (MOH) and UnitedHealth (UNH).