EDITORIAL: Working together to fight opioid crisis

Oct. 15--Anyone who has wrestled with health insurance regulations covering treatment and procedures knows how frustrating it can be, even for relatively minor matters.

Given the breadth of the opioid addiction crisis and its toll -- about 15 Pennsylvanians die every day from overdoses as the state remains under a public health emergency -- there should be no bureaucratic barriers to life-saving treatment. The last thing that the health care system should offer an addict seeking treatment is the delay inherent in a provider obtaining prior authorization from an insurance carrier.

Friday, the Wolf administration and seven major insurance companies -- Aetna, Capital BlueCross, Geisinger, Highmark, Independence Blue Cross, UPMC and United Healthcare -- reached an historic agreement to eliminate prior authorization for providers to treat patients for substance abuse disorders.

The American Medical Association has called for the agreement to become the national standard, as it should.

And with the agreement in hand, the parties should move on to another major aspect of the problem -- ensuring that coverage is good for the entire prescribed treatment period. Many insurance protocols limit treatment to defined periods that result in addicts being discharged prematurely, thus increasing their chances of relapsing.

The opioid crisis is an all-hands-on-deck emergency. The administration and the insurers deserve credit for working together.

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