Today, administrative complexity continues to shape access to care, affecting both patients and providers. For individuals seeking timely treatment, delays and uncertainty remain common. For providers — especially community and rural hospitals — the burden of navigating these processes continues to strain already limited resources.

Prior authorization requirements are one of the most visible examples of this dynamic, and a 11% reduction in such reviews over the last year following an insurance industry pledge offers a welcome sign of progress. At a minimum, this shift suggests that some of the administrative burden embedded in the system can be reduced without compromising its core functions. But it also underscores a more persistent issue.

What was once a targeted tool for reviewing select services has expanded into a routine requirement across a wide range of procedures, diagnostic tests, and medications. Too often, patients are required to navigate a multi-step approval process before treatment deemed medically necessary by their physician can proceed. Even when requests are ultimately approved, the time required to secure authorization can delay treatment and create uncertainty.

These delays can have real consequences. Waiting for approval can mean postponing necessary care or navigating complex appeals processes when coverage is denied. Surveys have even found that nearly a quarter of physicians have encountered scenarios where prior authorization requirements have contributed to a serious adverse event for a patient, including hospitalization or lasting harm.

Providers experience these challenges in parallel. Hospitals and physician practices must dedicate significant staff time to tracking insurer requirements, submitting documentation, responding to follow-up requests, and managing appeals. Nurses, case managers, and administrative personnel often spend hours navigating insurer portals or waiting for responses, diverting time and resources away from direct patient care.

These pressures are particularly acute for community and rural hospitals. Unlike larger health systems, which may have dedicated administrative teams and greater financial flexibility, smaller providers often operate with limited staffing and narrow margins. Each additional layer of administrative complexity competes directly with investments in clinical staff, equipment, and essential services. In these settings, delays in authorization and reimbursement are not simply operational challenges — they can affect the stability of institutions that serve as critical access points for care.

Prior authorization is not the only contributor to this broader pattern. Claims denials, appeals processes, and increasingly automated review systems have added further complexity to the system. The growing use of AI-assisted claims processing has the potential to improve efficiency, but its integration into an already layered administrative framework has also introduced new uncertainties, including faster initial determinations and more frequent requests for additional documentation.

Taken together, these trends point to a healthcare system in which administrative processes increasingly determine how and when care is delivered. Patients and providers alike must navigate these systems, often with limited visibility into how decisions are made or how long they will take. While each component of the system may serve a purpose, the cumulative effect can be to slow the delivery of care and increase the burden on those who rely on it. The challenge now is finding ways to implement consistent and durable improvements without undermining broader goals of cost management and quality assurance.

Several practical steps could help move the system in that direction. Standardizing prior authorization requirements across plans would reduce the need for patients and providers to navigate a different process for each insurer. Establishing clear and enforceable timelines for coverage decisions would help ensure that patients are not left waiting indefinitely for approval. Requiring transparent reporting on authorization and denial rates would provide greater visibility into how these processes function and where barriers persist.

These types of reforms are not about eliminating appropriate oversight or weakening protections against unnecessary healthcare spending. Rather, they are about ensuring that administrative systems support timely access to care while allowing providers to focus on delivering services rather than navigating paperwork.

The American healthcare system faces many complex challenges, including rising costs, workforce shortages, and demographic pressures. Reducing unnecessary administrative burdens will not resolve all of them, but it is one area where meaningful progress is both achievable and overdue. Ultimately, health insurance should function as a bridge to care, not a barrier to it. Strengthening the processes that connect clinical decision-making with coverage is an important step toward building a system that works more effectively for patients, providers, and the communities they serve.

John Allard is the former mayor of Roseville, CA, and has previously held leadership positions at non-profits that work to address healthcare accessibility issues.