In my psychiatric practice, I help patients do well on a variety of medications that must be maintained indefinitely. Even though the need for maintenance is well established in the literature, insurance carriers require that [prior authorizations] be renewed yearly or more often, consuming a lot of my and my staff’s time. Obtaining [prior authorizations] takes at a minimum a few days, and sometimes, in the case of rejections, weeks. During that time, patients are not treated. Some have gotten much worse and ended up in the hospital. The delays put patients' lives at risk.