Prior authorization was very detrimental to a very close friend of mine. My friend has diabetes, severe hypertension, CKD-Stage 2, anemia and is legally blind secondary to diabetic retinopathy. In the spring of 2016 her primary care physician wrote a letter of prior authorization. He wanted to get her insurance company to approve a Catapres patch for treatment of her hypertension, because she could not tolerate the oral form of the medication without significant blood pressure fluctuations causing significant hypotension and hypertension. My friend was hospitalized that fall secondary to uncontrolled hypertension with edema and during that hospitalization they used the Catapres patch and her blood pressure finally stabilized. She has been using that medication ever since and now has well controlled blood pressure. It would seem the insurance company would have been wise to initially listen to the trained physician instead of paying for a hospitalization to come to the conclusion that my friend needed this medication.