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Kansas committee hears patient and physician accounts as bill seeks to tighten prior authorization
Summary
Physicians, patients and insurers gave sharply different testimony Wednesday on Senate Bill 330, which would standardize prior authorization processes, require electronic portals, set timelines and limit some retrospective denials; insurers warned of vague definitions and implementation costs.
The Kansas Senate Committee on Financial Institutions and Insurance heard hours of testimony Wednesday on Senate Bill 330, a measure intended to increase transparency and set new limits on prior authorization for health care and pharmacy benefits.
The bill, which a committee staff member identified as the "transparency and prior authorization act," would require utilization review entities to accept electronic prior authorization requests, set response timelines for urgent and emergency services, prohibit retrospective denials except for fraud, require peer‑to‑peer review options, and direct utilization review entities to submit annual prior authorization statistics to the Commissioner of Insurance for publication in the Kansas Register.
Supporters led by the Kansas Medical Society and clinicians said the current prior authorization system delays care and puts non‑specialist reviewers between patients and treating physicians. "It's simply gone too far," Rochelle Colombo, executive director of the Kansas Medical Society, told the committee. She said the society supports SB 330 as a step toward reducing harmful delays.
Pediatric gastroenterologist…
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