As a nurse I would spend 30 minutes or more on prior authorizations. The insurance companies would expect doctors to do these calls!  I would often call the insurance company to speak to a prior auth agent who obviously was not medically trained. They could not even correctly pronounce the medication name! They had no idea what the drug was for. They were just working off an algorithm. Try telling them a complicated reason why this patient must have this med...not gonna happen. In my opinion, this is all a way to prevent patients from getting drugs they need. Basically, some uneducated prior auth agent gets to nix a physician order!!!