Over the years, many pts have told me that they have contacted law firms about being discriminated against by being discharged from a medical practice and/or having their medication reduced/cut. Leaving them sometimes having to deal with cold turkey withdrawal and if they survive the withdrawals, they end up with having to live/exist into a torturous level of pain, being chair, bed or house confined. Generally – almost exclusively – pts have been told by various law firms that they have no interest in pursuing such discrimination cases.
By and large, law firms like to go down well worn paths to a pot of money. Massive lawsuits against pharmas, and drug wholesalers, claiming that they caused/contributed to the opiate crisis are being thrown out of the courts and/or being over turned. Several law firms have found out the hard way that the tobacco settlement at the end of the last century was not going to be repeated with the companies involved with selling/distributing opiates and controlled substances.
This session of our Supreme Court of the US has come down with a number of decisions that could have both a direct and indirect impact on the chronic pain community. Certain groups are claiming that “healthcare is a RIGHT”, we have seen bureaucrats wanting to help/treat people dealing with mental health issues and addiction. What could be the largest segment of our population – the chronic pain community – is the largest segment that is having their necessary medical reduced/limited/taken away.
The CDC has put out their new 211 page proposed opiate dosing guidelines for comments – as required by law – and if the CDC follows the normal bureaucratic processes, I expect them to publish them – mostly/greatly unchanged from the ones published for comment. I also expect that they will be approved and published sometime between Labor Day and mid-term election, the second week of Nov. 85% of Congress will go into full blown re-election mode… until the Nov election is over and then all the “losers” will be packing up their offices to go home and the ones that got re-elected will be backing up their offices, because they will be moving up the seniority “totem pole ” and be entitled to “newer/bigger offices”.
Law firms may not be interested in discrimination and harm done to pts in the past, but I expect that many entities (healthcare, insurance/pbm, chain pharmacies, etc, etc) to quickly JUMP ON – the 50 MME’s- as a daily limit – that is mentioned numerous times within the 2022 guidelines. I seriously doubt that the DEA will firmly adhere to the SCOTUS’ recently ruling of stop playing doctor, most likely they will try covertly to skirt around that ruling. The DEA has been doing what they have wanted to do for nearly 50 yrs and changing this huge bureaucracy’s direction/course will not happen over night and it may take several more lawsuits to get them to follow the “new rules”
When these various healthcare entities start to force their employed prescribers, employed pharmacies or their coverage policy of the insurance/pbm companies to reduce – in mass – the daily limits of opiate therapy – based on the MME system – which has no science nor double blind clinical studies behind them and has NO APPLICATION to treating chronic pain. And all of this is done without any clinical justification of individual pt’s valid medical necessity.
This is where law firms – considering all the recent changes in laws/rules/regulations – could look at class action lawsuits. This might also be the time for families who have lost a loved one because they committed suicide from having their meds reduced/cut and/or suffered a premature death from the stroke, heart attack, eye, kidney damage or other complications of their comorbidity issues from under/untreated pain.
Once the CDC 2022 opiate dosing guidelines are approved and published, things may start happening quickly. Those in the community that is comfortable with however the new guidelines impact their quality of life (QOL) don’t need to do anything… Those who are tired of having their QOL being compromised by politicians, bureaucrats and executives at large healthcare corporations, start doing your homework of law firms that deal with civil rights discrimination, and personal harm… this has nothing to do with MALPRACTICE – that is “no-winner” path to go down.
Below, I have shared links to a number of posts from my blog from over the last couple of months that may be of interest to some law firms that you talk to. Remember law firms seek out damages to people and entities that cause those damages to have deep pockets. The entities that will most likely to adopt/implement the 50 MME/day limits… should meet the criteria of deep pockets and the more people that are harmed, the more interest law firms will have .
Supreme Court Tells Cops To Stop Playing Doctor – BUT – will they listen – or – back to business as usual ?
Breaking: Supreme Court Rules ‘Red Flag’ Gun Laws Unconstitutional – should RED FLAGS used by DEA be UNCONSTITUTIONAL ?
Opioids In Good Faith: Dr. Jay Joshi Weighs In On The Supreme Court Decision On Opioid Prescribing
PROP Keeps Lying About Opioids – This Time They Got Caught
THE TIDE IS TURNING: Drug distributors win landmark opioid case brought by West Virginia local governments
ACR Statement on Recent Events: The Patient-Doctor Relationship Must Be Preserved
Lawyers, bureaucrats & judges should not get between a pt and their doctor on medical decisions
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services: Civil Rights: Filing a Civil Rights Complaint
SCOTUS starting to tell various federal enforcement agencies to “stay in their lane” and stop creating new regulations without statutory authority
First it was the CHINA VIRUS, now it is the CHINA ILLEGAL FENTANYL PLAGUE
Supreme Court Rules for Doctors on ‘Pill Mill’ Prosecution Proof: 9 to 0 in favor of practitioners
Personal Responsibility just came back into vogue
To protect people with addiction from discrimination, the Justice Dept. turns to a long-overlooked tool: the ADA
CMS Behavioral Health Strategy: Goal 3: Ensure effective pain treatment and management
States are PUSHING BACK on DEA wanting to do “data mining” in their PDMP database without a warrant from a judge
New Data on Opioid Dose Reduction—Implications for Patient Safety
Breaking: Supreme Court Rules ‘Red Flag’ Gun Laws Unconstitutional – should RED FLAGS used by DEA be UNCONSTITUTIONAL ?
Was/is the CDC 2016 guidelines built on a “false foundation ” and created a covert genocide on a protect class of people ?
https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/harmful-effects-of-untreated-pain/harmofpain/
Filed under: General Problems
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