April 27, 2026
On April 20, UnitedHealthcare (UHC) announced three new initiatives designed to lower costs and streamline processes for rural clinicians. The three initiatives are:
UHC designed the planned exemptions for rural clinicians to “alleviate cost and staffing strains that disproportionately affect rural providers and will give them greater flexibility to focus on patient care rather than administrative processes,” according to the statement.
You might remember that between 2023 and 2024, UHC eliminated hundreds of prior authorizations through its Gold Card program and other reforms, thanks in part to NCAFP advocacy for prior authorization reform. The Gold Card program launched on Oct. 1, 2024, and it eliminated prior authorization requirements for select clinicians on over 500 UHC codes. This reform supplemented the UHC Project Promise program from November 2023, which had eliminated prior authorization on 200 codes.
The NCAFP welcomes UHC’s continued decrease in prior authorization volume and will keep all members updated as this reform goes into effect.
The North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians, Inc. (NCAFP) is a nonprofit professional association headquartered in Raleigh which represents over 4,300 family physicians, family medicine residents, and medical students across the state. It is the largest medical specialty association in North Carolina and is a constituent chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians, based in Leadwood, KS.
