Mount Sinai Pharmacy Uses AI to Manage GLP-1 Demand Surge
Mount Sinai Health System's GLP-1 prescription volume has roughly doubled over the past year as it added new clinics and the Medicare GLP-1 Bridge program launched July 1, according to pharmacy director Mark Makhinson. An AI-assisted prior authorization tool automated the billing sequence required for Bridge claims and now scans medical records for eligibility criteria, cutting prior authorization turnaround and raising approval rates while 200 to 250 pharmacy staff use the platform daily. Prescribing-to-dispensing time dropped from about 2.5 days to under 2 days. The system's new bottleneck is physical: refrigerator, freezer and shipping space for GLP-1 storage, a constraint Makhinson says will take longer to resolve than the software fix did.