1.  Demand a letter from the HMO explaining why it would not authorize your treatment.

2.  Or the patient can choose Comfort Care Arrest, which authorizes medical treatment up to the point when the breathing or heartbeat stop.

3.  Once there, Russell had someone call the facility posing as a doctor authorizing special treatment at a Houston hospital, from which the inmate escaped.

4.  Since the law passed, Root said, he has had difficulty persuading insurers to authorize needed treatment for his patients.

5.  They confer with other physicians and authorize treatments.