healthcare access
How Medicare’s Prior‑Authorization Crackdown Trimmed MRI Waste and Rattled Outpatient Clinics
When Medicare announced in early 2024 that it would tighten prior-authorization gates for advanced imaging, the ripple effect was immediate: a roughly one-third drop in unnecessary MRI orders, a $1.9 billion cash-flow boost for the program, and a scramble in outpatient imaging centers to redesign everything from order entry