I recently read news that really brought home the real-life impact on patient care —really, on patient’s lives—of an effective prior authorization (PA) process. In February 2019, long-time disability rights activist and attorney Carrie Ann Lucas died prematurely at age 47 from a plethora of health problems, exacerbated by her disabilities.
However, according to a post following her passing on her Facebook page, her friends and family identify the root cause as the denial by her insurance carrier of “the one specific inhaled antibiotic that she really needed. She had to take a less effective drug and had a bad reaction to that drug. Read the full article.