US lawmakers are debating a bill to prevent the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) from launching a pilot program expanding the prior authorization system in traditional Medicare. The goal of the CMS pilot program is to test whether prior authorization can work in traditional Medicare, as it does in other parts of the system. Prior authorization is an administrative process in which a health care provider must obtain approval from a payer (eg, an insurance company) before providing a certain service. The bill is intended to block the very implementation of this pilot testing in traditional Medicare. The discussion took place on Thursday at the level of legislators, who assessed the essence and consequences of such a legislative step. The article states that the subject of the dispute is mainly the expansion of the use of prior authorization in a segment where it has not been used to such an extent.