I am a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Nevada. More than 99% of the time, we have to obtain prior authorization for a procedure (usually an ultrasound on a pregnant patient). However, it takes more than a week to get the authorization back from the insurance company. Then, we have to contact the patient and get her scheduled. Now, she has had to wait weeks for an ultrasound only to find out there was a lethal birth defect. WHY should we have to obtain a prior authorization when it is always approved after a delay? How can this be good care? 

It definitely costs our practice a great deal of money to hire people to obtain prior authorization, not to mention the poor patient who has to wait for the insurance company to approve something that we knew would be approved. It is just bad medicine, and the patient suffers the most.