Tag: prior authorization

The Beastwood Files: June 2026

~ iambeastwood ~ Leave a comment

Been a busy few weeks in the Beastwood house. My son survived his kindergarten screening and a trip to a new dentist, I survived three trips to the doctor (for routine appointments, thankfully) with my mother, and we all survived four and a half days in the White Mountains for the Fourth of July (a trip bookended by visits to two different children’s museums in southern New Hampshire).

Stuff I Wrote

Things I Did

  • Went to more beaches than I can count and didn’t bother to clean the trunk
  • Attended my son’s preschool graduation, complete with mini caps and gowns
  • Experienced the brick-and-mortar sociology experiment that is Walmart Supercenter in Conway, N.H. on the Thursday before Fourth of July weekend to buy as many box fans as I could fit in a single shopping cart to cool off our AC-less rental condo while the heat dome covered the East Coast
  • Signed up for the Manchester (N.H.) City Marathon with the hopes of avenging my Worst Marathon Ever, which I ran there in 2012 (through no fault of the race itself, which is actually quite lovely)
  • Learned that the easiest way to remove matted fur from a long-haired cat is, believe it or not, to gently pull it out

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • In the weeks leading up to Father’s Day, I joked with my family that, as a Boring Suburban Dad, all I wanted as a present was white socks. My son sensed that this was a Dad Joke and was all too happy to play along – and even told me a trip to CVS with Mom was happening so they could get *black* socks to go with them. (I also got to sleep in while Mom and son went to Dunk’s.)
  • When we talked about activities to plan for the Fourth of July in New Hampshire, my son said he wanted to make a gingerbread house. As astute readers will recall, we made a gingerbread house for St. Patrick’s Day, so this request wasn’t out of left field. My son has no interest in eating any of the candy with which on traditionally decorates a gingerbread house; it’s all about the experience. This experience meant red, white, and blue candy, of course.
  • Though our primary connection to the World Cup is themed Squishmallows acquired via Happy Meals, we did catch the end of the Brazil-Norway Round of 16 game while out to dinner on vacation. Amid explaining the intricacies of soccer to my son AND father-in-law (thankfully neither asked me what it means to be offside), we decided our favorite player is The Viking. I can’t really argue with that.

Happy rest of July. We’re home for most of the month, which means we’ll do approximately 2,345 extemporaneous craft projects. The crayons are ready…

This Month (or So) in Digital Health: AI’s Growing Pains, Federal Health’s Shrinking Pains

~ iambeastwood ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to This Month in Digital Health, where I summarize news articles that recently caught my attention and attempt to try to put the trends in broader context. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but one of the main themes this month is AI, which healthcare finally seems to be putting under the microscope. Also of note is how the Iran war will impact health systems and how federal health may be gutted yet again.

The honeymoon’s over for clinical AI. One study found clinicians save less than 30 minutes a day using AI scribes and don’t decrease their after-hours EHR use. Another one determined Epic’s algorithms don’t perform well in the real world, which matters because AI vendors struggle to compete with EHR incumbents even if their products work better. So, it comes as no surprise that healthcare’s struggling to calculate AI’s ROI and getting impatient when ROI is slow to arrive. On top of everything else, experts say AI oversight and governance need to catch up. Good times.

Consumers understand AI’s limitations. About one-third of American adults turn to AI with health-related questions. Don’t run around screaming that the robot doctors are taking over, though. Education and research make up more than half of healthcare AI queries, compared to 8% for care questions, and people readily admit they use AI because it’s convenient, not because it’s accurate. Seems like there’s most definitely some log-hanging fruit for all those consumer AI health tools (nearly diagramed by Rock Health).

Federal health funding? What federal health funding? The White House is proposing a 12% cut to HHS in 2027, though it’s worth noting Congress ignored a similar request last year. Even with funding restored, HHS is in disarray after massive job cuts (as are other federal agencies), as detailed in excellent long reads from Healthcare Dive. Also, 400-plus hospitals are at risk of closing due to Medicaid cuts that are projected to reach $1 trillion over the next decade.

Healthcare may feel the pinch of the Iran war. Disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz may not impact medical supply chains immediately, and the uncertainty of what may come means stocking up is a bad idea. Cybersecurity is a more immediate threat, as “cyber conflict increasingly mirrors geopolitical tensions,” one expert told Healthcare Brew.

Prior authorization: Now with slightly less time wasted! The insurance industry patted itself on the back by eliminating 11% of prior authorizations, according to an AHIP statement. Meanwhile, Health Affairs found 90% of prior authorizations are approved the first time, which essentially means the $30 cost per transaction is paying for a rubber stamp.

In other relatively interesting news:

Thanks for playing along. See you next time.