With U.S. national healthcare expenditures having reached $9,990 per person ($3.2 trillion total) in 2015 (and projected to grow another 6.5% in 2017), the industry continues to pursue innovative ways to reduce costs, such as moving to value-based care, narrowing provider networks and exploring healthcare technology innovations. While not a new concept, in an effort to pressure costs, there has been additional emphasis in recent years on requiring prior authorization requests for certain (typically high-cost) procedures or medications; this has resulted in a 33% increase in total industry authorizations in the last two years.
