Payers

Shannon May, Photos: Adobe Stock

On Oct. 1, UnitedHealthcare will eliminate 30% of prior authorization (PA) requirements, following criticism from both patients and providers that the process delays necessary care.

This reduction applies to about 1,700 medical codes across commercial, Medicare Advantage, and other health plans, the payer announced on Sept. 1. It adds to United’s 20% reduction in commercial plan prior authorizations in 2023.

UnitedHealthcare said in a press release its goal is to “help reduce administrative work, remove barriers that can delay care, and give [providers] more time to focus on patient care.” The PA process is meant to safeguard against medically unnecessary care, but government investigations suggest some necessary care may get denied, too.

Michelle Long, senior policy manager for the program on patient and consumer protections at KFF, a health policy research and polling group, told Healthcare Brew the cuts “could make a difference” for some patients and providers, though it’s not possible to estimate their potential impact without more detailed PA data.

Keep reading about the upcoming changes.—CC

      

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Pharma

Morning Brew Inc.

New week, new name for Novo Nordisk.

The Danish pharmaceutical company, best known for developing Ozempic and Wegovy, announced on Sept. 14 that it’s rebranding to just “Novo.” The name change also comes with a renewed company logo and slogan “Lasting health starts now.”

Novo is trying to compete with Eli Lilly, the maker of Zepbound and Mounjaro, for dominance in the weight loss and diabetes markets. Novo’s stock has fallen around 17% since the start of the year, landing at $43.45, as of market close on Sept. 14. Lilly’s stock, in comparison, closed at $1,138.28 on the same day.

Keep reading here.—MA

      

Tech

Illustration: Brittany Holloway-Brown, Photos: Adobe Stock

OpenAI reported in July that ChatGPT answers medical questions for 300 million people each week, and one KFF survey found that about a third of people were asking AI for help with medical questions. Most people (68%), though, are still using search engines.

When KFF asked respondents why they were turning to AI, 65% reported needing “quick and immediate advice” as a major reason. Some also said they wanted to look up information about their condition before seeing a provider (41%) or that they felt more comfortable “looking up questions privately” (36%).

People have been using the internet to learn more about their health for decades now. What’s different with AI, according to Oliver Kharraz, CEO and founder of health tech Zocdoc, is that the information can be more personalized and more engaging, making it alluring to patients.

“Every time that one of these waves of more engaging media comes out…there’s maybe a risk that some patients overly trust that information,” he said. “Then the norms start setting in, where [patients] use it as a tool, and it’s frequently a good initiator of action.”

But for now, providers may find themselves frequently contending with inaccurate or incomplete advice their patients get from AI chatbots.

Get the rest of the story here.—CM

      

vital signs

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: 32%. That’s the percentage of patients in a clinical trial who “responded” to Definium Therapeutics’s LSD-based treatment for anxiety. (Stat)

Quote: “I’m really concerned about how long it’s going to take for us as a country to address all of the harm that’s happening to this generation of kids.”—Wendy Cervantes, director of the immigration and immigrant families team at the Center for Law and Social Policy, on the lasting effects of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown (KFF Health News)

Read: How CVS is benefiting from Walgreens store closures. (TheStreet)

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Public health researcher Megan Ranney has spent her career studying violence prevention. She talks through what actually works—and what doesn’t—to reduce firearm-related harm.

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