Insurers Agree to Expedite Prior Authorizations for Common Medical Services

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Monday that major health insurers have promised to streamline the prior authorization process for common medical services.

The arrangement, which involves about 40 top insurers and hospital systems in the United States, aims to make it easier for people to get advance approvals from their insurance provider.

Insurers are pledging changes such as standardizing electronic submissions, reducing the number of services subject to prior approval, honoring authorizations during insurance transitions, expanding transparency around decisions and appeals, and ensuring medical professionals review cases in the event of a denial.

This could be good news for the approximately 85% of Americans who say they've been impacted by medical delays due to snarls with prior authorization.

"257 million patients are covered by the group that we met with morning," HHS Secretary Kennedy said on Monday. "And while we were in that meeting, another company joined the group. And we expect we're going to have rolling enrollment. So we expect many other companies will also join. The other difference is we have standards this time. We have deliverables. We have specificity on those deliverables. We have metrics and we have deadlines and we have oversight."

Health officials said more details would roll out starting in January of 2026, including a portal to gather data from government and hospitals for the public to review.