Measuring the Effects of Medicare Advantage Prior Authorization Policies for Chemotherapy

This project will use Colorado’s all-payer database, which includes Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare claims data, as well as data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on use of prior authorization, to examine the effects of prior authorization on types of chemotherapy. The project will examine the time between ordering and receipt of therapies, including nonreceipt of therapy, and use a difference-in-difference analysis to help account for unobserved differences in enrollees, and a cox regression for a time-to-treatment analysis. The project also will examine the implications of care delays and nonreceipt of care on spending and progression-free survival. All analyses will examine how the effects differ across subgroups of beneficiaries, including differences among Black beneficiaries and white beneficiaries.