In June 2025, 75% of U.S. health insurers, including UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, Humana, and Aetna, pledged to streamline prior authorization processes to reduce administrative burden and speed up patient care. That’s right: insurers are actually cutting red tape instead of adding more. (We’ll pause for a collective gasp.)

According to industry reporting, clinicians currently spend 10–12 hours each week on paperwork tied to prior authorizations. Time that could be better spent on patient care.

But it’s not just clinicians who feel the pain. Behind the scenes, admin teams are the unsung heroes (or hostages) of prior auth. They’re the ones chasing down missing documentation, filling out endless payer forms, and resubmitting packets when requirements shift like sand. For many practices, this consumes 15–20 staff hours per week, per provider, essentially equivalent to a part-time job in prior authorization.

For admin teams, insurer commitments to reduce prior auth burden could be a game-changer:

• Faster approvals mean fewer backlogs, fewer “just checking on the status” calls, and fewer unnecessary scheduling delays.
• Reduced paperwork means your staff can finish a cup of coffee before it goes cold.
• Improved compliance visibility lowers the risk of missed or delayed approvals and the dreaded “fax black hole.”

Still, promises from payers won’t solve everything. Without better systems, admin teams will still spend hours tracking, sorting, and re-entering information to stay afloat.

That’s why Medsender is bringing Prior Authorization automation soon, so you can spend less time battling paperwork dragons and more time focusing on patients, growth, and maybe even leaving the office on time.

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