But what if your health insurance company won't pay for the drugs, specifically the only drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat your disease?

Robin Skinner has lived with Fibromyalgia since her 20s.

"If I do too much today, I'll be down for the next two days with a flare or maybe longer," said Skinner, Fibromyalgia patient.

The type of flare Skinner is talking about is common amongst Fibromyalgia sufferers who over exert themselves doing things that most people take for granted. A flare can last from a couple of hours to a couple of months.

For Skinner, simply getting out of bed in the morning can cause severe physical pain. Skinner fought with her health insurance company for months to get Lyrica. Since last June, Lyrica remains the only drug-therapy approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat Fibromyalgia.

Skinner's health insurance provider required her to try and fail several other medications before the company would approve Lyrica. Industry experts call this policy step-therapy while Skinner says it's just a series of barriers preventing her from getting the medication she needs.

"We're going to make it difficult for her to get them, not that she can't get them, but we're going to make her jump through a few more hoops to get them, that's the way it makes me feel," said Skinner.

Step-therapy alters the doctor-patient relationship, giving health insurance companies the power to override a physician's medical judgment.

"The company is trying to practice medicine without a license, I feel," said Dr. Osvaldo Acosta, Pain Specialist.

Documents obtained by KOMU show several health insurance companies, including Coventry Health Care, the largest provider in mid-Missouri, use step-therapy. Many of the insurance carriers hope to limit their losses by limiting some of the treatments available to their clients.

"They're an insurance company," said Dr. Acosta. "Expensive for who? Them? They're an insurance company, isn't that what they're there for?"

Coventry's current coverage policy requires its members to prove failure of four separate medications and see a psychiatrist before the company will pay for Lyrica. Mercy Health plans require similar steps before they'll cover Lyrica.