Dr Horst reviews the results a study of how a delay of insurance approval of more than 14 days in escalating dosage of biologic treatment can affect outcomes for patients with IBD.

Sara Horst, MD, is a gastroenterologist and associate professor with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

TRANSCRIPT:

Dr. Sara Horst:  Hi, I'm Sara Horst, a gastroenterologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. I'm excited to talk about our research that we presented this year at ACG.

We presented a poster looking at dose escalation in subcutaneous biologic therapy and the impact of insurance delay.

As gastroenterologists and teams are aware, when a request for dose escalation for a biologic therapy occurs, oftentimes a prior authorization is needed. Sometimes appeals, or second-level appeals are needed.

We wanted to see if a delay because of these insurance requirements affect clinical outcomes. We showed that if insurance delayed requested dose escalation by 14 days or more, the likelihood that the patient had an improvement on CRP became non-significant compared to the group where the dose escalation could happen within 14 days.

These increasingly complicated insurance requirements when we are requesting dose escalation can impact clinical outcomes. Thanks.