Addressing Prior Authorizations Key in Reducing Physician Burnout: Sarah Bajorek, PharmD, BCACP

Sarah Bajorek, PharmD, BCACP, assistant chief pharmacy officer for ambulatory care at UC Davis Health, discussed how the burden of prior authorizations can lead to physician burnout as well as health system operations when addressing them is not streamlined.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity; captions are auto-generated.

Transcript

What does existing research show about how prior authorization requirements affect health system operations?

There was a study that was conducted by the [American Medical Association] in 2024. They looked at, I believe, 1000 different providers across the nation, specifically at prior authorizations and what the challenges are for them and how that contributes to the health system. And I think that what that research shows is that there's a lot of administrative burden on prior authorizations for both the health system and the staff that are completing it. It's very time-consuming and is very costly.

What are the most pressing issues contributing to physician burnout today, and how are they evolving?

I think the most pressing issue contributing to physician burnout, at least as it relates to the areas that I oversee, is the number of tasks that bleed over outside a standard 8 AM to 5 PM workday, which includes prior authorizations and refill authorizations for medication requests that come from pharmacies that may have extended hours beyond the traditional kind of ambulatory clinic. And I think as there is more integration and interoperability between health systems, electronic medical records, and retail pharmacies, those can come at any time, and they can build up on weekends and after hours. The amount of tasks that providers or physicians have to complete, in addition to direct patient care, can be really overwhelming. And physicians and providers that are taking care of the patients in diagnosing, treating chronic disease, or treating acute illnesses, and all these other administrative tasks that obviously support patient care but take away from the direct face-to-face patient visits—it bleeds over after hours, and it can be overwhelming and lead to burnout for the time that it takes away from families or other activities that they would like to do after hours. And again, in this study that was completed in 2024 of the respondents, 89% expressed burnout as it relates to prior authorizations, which is a really high number and something that we would like to improve and decrease.