Prior authorization is a utilization management process used by some health insurance companies in the United States to determine if they will cover a prescribed procedure, service, or medication.

What does pre Auth mean?

Authorization hold (also card authorization, preauthorization, or preauth) is a service offered by credit and debit card providers whereby the provider puts a hold of the amount approved by the cardholder, reducing the balance of available funds until the merchant clears the transaction (also called settlement), after ...

How does pre auth work?

A credit card pre-authorization is much like any other charge to a credit card, except instead of actually debiting funds from the cardholder you just put a temporary "hold" on the funds that lasts for 5 days. At a technical level, the actual duration of the hold depends on the merchant classification code (MCC code).