Most people who go to the pharmacy to get their prescriptions aren’t aware of all the behind-the-scenes work involved in getting their medication to them. One of those steps is prior authorization, which is time-consuming for physicians. BreezMed, a company founded by Dr. Stephen Salzbrenner, is here to help with issues surrounding prior authorization.

Prior authorization was made to help medications be prescribed responsibly. Its purpose was to assist doctors in finding the best options for patients at the lowest rate. Unfortunately, prior authorization has morphed itself into a way for insurance companies to make money through different rebates and barriers put into place. Prior authorization is also extremely time consuming for physicians; it can take 9-14 hours a week to fill out the forms.

BreezMed aims to make prior authorization less labor intensive for whomever is prescribing the medicine. The software does the research for them, so they don’t have to spend those extra hours looking at files and filling out forms. It will also help with preventing patient dissatisfaction and physician burnout, a major problem in the healthcare industry.

Prior authorization can also make it more time-consuming for patients. It can take anywhere between a few hours to a few weeks for providers to sort through all the prior authorization barriers. “The goal is that when the patient shows up at the pharmacy all of this stuff that often has to be done after the fact is already done, so they can actually get the medicine they need,” Dr. Salzbrenner said.

Dr. Salzbrenner has worked tirelessly to see this product come to light. With the help of colleagues like Trish Wonch-Hill, NBDC, NDED, UNL’s Methodology and Evaluation Research Core (MERC) and H4 Technology, Breezmed has a bright future ahead.