Two big health insurer groups are teaming up with four bigprovider groups to try to improve U.S. health plans' priorauthorization procedures.

America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and BlueShield Association have joined the effort together with theAmerican Hospital Association, the American Medical Association,the American Pharmacists Association and the Medical GroupManagement Associations, AHIP announced today.

Health insurers and plans often require patients to check withthem before getting certain types of care.

Carriers that use prior approval programs say the programs canprevent fraud, waste and abuse, and, in some cases, keep patientsfrom receiving care that may not be safe.

But "prior authorization approvals can be burdensome for healthcare professionals, hospitals, health insurance providers, andpatients, because the processes vary and can be repetitive," AHIPsays in its initiative announcement.

The six groups participating in the project say in a consensusstatement that they want to reduce the number of health careprofessionals subject to prior authorization requirements andeliminating obsolete prior authorization requirements.

The groups say they want to streamline the prior authorizationrequest process by pushing for adoption of national electronicdocument exchange standards, and by trying, whenever possible, touse existing standards, such as the standards pharmacies alreadyuse.

AHIP and the Blues agreed that their member insurers will try todo a better job of getting information about new coverage criteriaand restrictions, and other new requirements, out to providers morequickly.

Insurers will try to rush coverage requirement updates out toproviders by communicating better with electronic health record andpharmacy data exchange system managers, and by posting theinformation on websites aimed at providers.

A copy of the consensus statement is available here.