UnitedHealthcare – prior authorizations when changing plans

Hello everyone. Does anyone know if prior authorizations automatically carry over from an old plan onto a new plan?

Some context:

My family gets health insurance (family coverage) through my wife’s job, which she has had for over 2 years. Although my wife is still working the same job, her employer is transitioning her (and all of her coworkers in the region) from one business to another business (I guess these are internal business entities under the same company and they were consolidating or something). Anyway, because of this transition, our old insurance plan is no longer being offered, and we have to select from a different set of plans for the new year.

Our old plan is a UnitedHealthcare plan and the new plan that we selected is also a UnitedHealthcare plan although the plans are different (i.e., different group number, different member ID number, different deductibles, different copays/coinsurance, different out-of-pocket limits, etc.)

Coverage under the new plan actually just became active on 1/1/2023 with coverage under the old plan having just ended at the end of the day 12/31/2022.

I am wondering if our existing prior authorizations under the old plan will automatically carry over to the new plan? (I tried calling customer service several times today, but I wasn’t able to reach anyone. I’m guessing they are closed today 1/2/2023.)

Anyone have experience with this? (By the way, we live in the U.S.)