🚨 BREAKING: RFK Jr. Announces Program to END Insurance Pre-Authorization!
— Lauren Lee (@sheislaurenlee) June 23, 2025
“85% of Americans say that they have had delays in health care because of prior authorization. The doctors hate it. It costs them 12 to 15 hours a week filling out forms.”
This is a MASSIVE win for… pic.twitter.com/hGEmWdPrZ5
In a press conference on Monday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced a landmark agreement with the nation’s largest health insurers to tackle the number one healthcare problem plaguing hundreds of millions of Americans: prior authorization.
Prior authorization is the requirement for doctors and patients to get advance approval from insurance companies BEFORE certain treatments, tests, or procedures are covered. It was meant to control costs, but for 85% of Americans, it’s become a serious barrier to care.
“Doctors like myself are continually struggling with this issue,” Dr. Oz said, explaining how the bureaucratic process not only delays treatment but deeply frustrates both providers and patients.
In 2023 alone, Medicare Advantage (which covers about 32 million people) initially denied 3.2 million prior authorization requests. Dr. Oz made clear these are not just numbers: they represent “individuals who often, in the most vulnerable time in their lives, needed something done and it was denied.”
The burden also falls heavily on physicians. On average, doctors spend 12 hours per week on paperwork, handling about 40 prior authorization cases weekly. Dr. Oz said it contributes to burnout, slows down care, and “erodes public trust in the health care system.”
An HHS press release announced today that “health insurers pledged six key reforms aimed at cutting red tape, accelerating care decisions, and enhancing transparency for patients and providers.”
These changes aim to ensure that patients and their doctors no longer have to battle insurance companies just to access common treatments like imaging, outpatient surgery, or physical therapy.
• Standardize electronic prior authorization submissions using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®)-based application programming interfaces.
• Reduce the volume of medical services subject to prior authorization by January 1, 2026.
• Honor existing authorizations during insurance transitions to ensure continuity of care.
• Enhance transparency and communication around authorization decisions and appeals.
• Ensure medical professionals review all clinical denials.• Expand real-time responses to minimize delays in care with real-time approvals for most requests by 2027
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