Heart disease patients, providers, caregivers and stakeholders agree: Health plan policies that delay access to life-saving medication are unacceptable.

The Partnership to Advance Cardiovascular Health’s recent survey revealed strong opinions about the danger of prior authorization and the risk associated with step therapy. The 350 respondents agreed that:

Health plans’ prior authorizations dangerously delay patients’ medicine that could prevent a heart attack or stroke (84%)
It is unreasonable for health plans to use prior authorization to delay high-risk patients’ access to medicine that could prevent a heart attack or stroke (88%)
Step therapy, or “fail first,” risks heart patients’ health by making them fail on a cheaper drug before getting the medicine their physician prescribed (74%).