Christopher Morley joins us this week to talk about prior authorizations, or PAs – a bureaucratic headache well known to anyone in primary care in which a physician’s office must complete additional paperwork or phone calls to a patient’s insurance company in order to get a medication or procedure covered by the insurance. This used to be a fairly rare occurrence, but it has dramatically increased in frequency over the last 20 years or so. Dr. Morley set out with some colleagues to try to quantify how much the PA process may cost, and moreover, to help us all think about who pays those costs in reality – ultimately, it is our patients.

Dr. Morley is the Chair of the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University, as well as the Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Family Medicine. He is a medical social scientist with principal interests in health disparities, particularly those that occur in primary care settings; health workforce development and medical education.

Review of Systems is a podcast hosted by Audrey Provenzano featuring conversations about the changing healthcare landscape from the Harvard Center for Primary Care. Check out our website, primarycare.hms.harvard.edu to find our podcast library, subscribe in your favorite podcast app, and find us at @rospodcast and @audreymdmph

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