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For providers with a history of high quality PA requests and high approval rates, there is something similar. See https://www.uhc.com/news-articles/newsroom/gold-card

Other insurers have similar programs.

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Sounds like another layer of "gotchas" to pin more work and blame on patients, while still not providing any guarantee. "Your healthcare was denied because while you may have checked the provider was 'in network', you did not also check to see if they have earned a gold star. I can email you a list of our highest quality providers that have earned gold stars"... Then most aren't taking new patients, and the one or two that do are booking out the better part of a year for a new patient visit.

I'll go out on a limb and say that the proliferation of these punt-the-problem administrative layers (in lieu of straightforwardly owning and solving problems) is one of the main things driving the medical industry's cost disease. A few years from now this "gold card" program will likely be administered by a newly spun out "third party" vendor that doesn't publish updated lists very well, but if you feel you were treated unfairly you can always file an appeal with them...

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