Payers

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CVS’s health insurance arm, Aetna, is expanding bundled prior authorizations (PAs) to all cancer treatments in a move that builds on an industrywide effort to streamline and reduce PAs following years of criticism from patients and government pressure.

Submitting PA requests takes up a significant chunk of physicians’ time and effort. Survey data from the American Medical Association found that in 2024, practices completed an average of 40 PAs per physician weekly. That amounted to an average of 13 hours of work per week. A vast majority (94%) of physicians said the PA process increases burnout, which is driving doctors to leave medicine, contributing to the nationwide doctor shortage.

Prior authorizations can be time-consuming because they are often completed via phone or fax and require multiple steps, such as a peer-to-peer review. That’s when a physician is required to talk to a clinician who works for the insurance company to discuss why a treatment is medically necessary.

Keep reading here.—MA

      

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Tech

Francis Scialabba

Welcome back to AI 411, a monthly roundup of tech announcements from across the healthcare industry.

This month, Utah became the first state to allow AI to write initial prescriptions for acne treatment through tech company Nolla Health. While healthcare continues to change, we’re here to make it easier to stay on top of things. Here’s your AI breakdown for October 2026.

Suki. AI scribe company Suki shared on Oct. 13 that it completed a $90 million Series E fundraise with investment from Healthier Capital, Crosslink Capital, and Hercules Capital. The company said it’s expanding its scribe’s capabilities to aid in additional operations like revenue and clinical reasoning.

See the full list here.—CM

      

vital signs

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: 50%. That’s how much the average person’s monthly premium is projected to rise for Medicare standalone prescription drug plans in 2027, assuming enrollees stay on their current plans. (KFF Health News)

Quote: “If you don’t generalize the knowledge by sharing the results, the whole ethics of the trial comes into question.”—Jennifer Miller, codirector of the program for biomedical ethics at Yale School of Medicine, on making clinical trial results transparent following increased FDA enforcement of a disclosure requirement (Undark)

Read: Hybrid urgent care clinics are sticking some patients with surprise bills. (Stat)

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