3 Reasons Why You Need ePrior Authorization

Top Reasons Your Practice Needs to Implement ePrior Authorization Today

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over 2.9 billion prescriptions are written each year.¹ It is estimated that 66 percent of these prescriptions require electronic prior authorization (ePA). New regulations regarding ePrior authorization can help ease the burden on physicians, pharmacists, and ultimately the patients.

When a physician orders a prescription for a patient, many times the medication requires additional measures to obtain prior authorization before the medication can be prescribed. This means a request must be made to payers or pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) by phone or fax to fill the prescription. According to a recent report by the American Medical Association (AMA), physicians and administrative staff spend nearly 15 hours securing 29 prior authorizations per physician each week.² Electronic prior authorization can help ease the burden of these cumbersome tasks.

Let your EHR do the work for you.

1. Save time and money – within an EHR like Practice Fusion that uses Surescripts , physicians are notified at the point-of-care if a medication requires prior authorization and can easily authorize within the EHR or choose another medication. The average time it takes for a practice to get approval back from the prescription benefit plan or payer is 60 seconds³, so you can spend more time with your patients and less time on the phone.

2. Reduce medication abandonment and misuse – completing electronic prior authorization while the patient is still in the office can eliminate time spent waiting at the pharmacy or on the phone waiting on approval for their prescriptions to be filled. Cutting down these delays for patients can increase proper medication usage and improve patient outcomes.

3. Increase patient satisfaction and ease frustrations – the easier the process is for a patient when visiting their physician and pharmacy, the more likely they are to adhere to appointments and treatment plans. Conveniently remove additional steps the patient would have to complete by utilizing the electronic prior authorization capability within the EHR while the patient is still in your care.

To see how utilizing electronic prior authorization can improve your practice workflow, click here to read more about electronic prescribing within the Practice Fusion EHR.

Reminder: To utilize ePrior authorization effectively, make sure your DEA number is updated and input correctly in your EHR account settings page.

¹Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2016. “National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2016 National Summary Tables.” Accessed July 23, 2019. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ahcd/namcs_summary/2016_namcs_web_tables.pdf

²American Medical Association. 2018. “2017 AMA Prior Authorization Physician Survey.” Accessed April 23, 2018. https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/default/files/media-browser/public/arc/prior-auth-2017.pdf

³Source: Surescripts internal network statistics