Prior authorization eats 20-plus staff hours a week per practice and automation still has not fixed it

Physician practices spend twenty or more hours per week chasing prior authorizations through faxes, phone calls and payer portals, and surveys show most physicians believe existing automation made it worse not better. A widely-shared ProPublica investigation into how insurers use software to deny coverage drew heavy community engagement. The painpoint is a real bottleneck that costs clinics time and delays patient care, and the existing payer-side automation is distrusted, leaving provider-side relief open.