A field journal for the people inside the system.

Why we exist

The U.S. healthcare system has the strange property of being broken in ways that nobody who works in it can fully explain. Payer policies change quarterly. CMS rules change annually. Formularies change mid-year. AI vendors ship features faster than clinics can evaluate them. The result is that clinics, patients, and even prescribers are constantly improvising against a system whose rulebook nobody has read end-to-end.

Formulary Notes exists because the trade publications cover this stuff in industry-speak, and the news outlets cover it in scandal-speak, but almost nobody covers it in the practical, "what do I do on Monday morning" register that the work actually requires.

What we publish

• Healthcare Tech. Honest, vendor-skeptical coverage of AI scribes, intake, scheduling, and RCM tools for small and medium clinics. We deploy this stuff ourselves.
• Policy Desk. Denial-rate data, payer rule changes, appeal playbooks, and what CMS regulatory shifts mean in practice.
• Patient Decoder. Plain-language guides on formularies, exception requests, copay cards, and the cost-of-care obstacle course.

How this is funded

Formulary Notes is funded by the weekly newsletter and by PriorAuthRx, a formulary lookup and appeal-letter generator we're building for small practices. We don't run programmatic ads, we don't take payer money, and we don't run sponsored content. If something on the site is sponsored or affiliated, it will say so at the top of the piece.

Who writes this

The publication is written and edited from a working healthcare practice in Lincoln, Nebraska. Pieces are drafted with the help of AI research assistants, then reviewed, fact-checked, and edited by a human before publication. Every claim cites its source, and every source links out.

Get in touch

Tip us on a story, pitch a piece, or tell us we got something wrong: notes@formulary-notes.example.