Imagine this: Another PBM – multi million settlement because of OVER CHARGING state’s Medicaid ?

Centene Corp. reaches $13.7M settlement with New Mexico over pharmacy benefit practices

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2022/06/14/centene-million-settlement-new-mexico-pharmacy.html

New Mexico is the latest state where Centene Corp. (NYSE: CNC) has reached a settlement over an investigation into its pharmacy benefit management practices for the Medicaid program.

Attorney General Hector Balderas on Monday announced a $13.7 million settlement with Centene over the state’s investigation of its subsidiaries’ pricing and reporting of pharmacy benefits and services to New Mexico’s Medicaid program.

“Vulnerable New Mexicans should not have to worry about paying surging prescription drug costs,” Balderas said in a written statement. “This investigation was necessary to shine a light on industry practices, ensure greater accountability and return $13.7 million back to New Mexico.”

Centene did not make an executive available for comment Tuesday. A company spokesperson said in a written statement: “We respect the deep and critically important relationships we have with our state partners. This no-fault agreement reflects the significance we place on addressing their concerns and our ongoing commitment to making the delivery of healthcare local, simple and transparent. Importantly, this allows us to continue our relentless focus on delivering high-quality outcomes to our members.”

The pharmacy benefits management practices of Centene’s subsidiaries have triggered investigations in other states and a shareholder lawsuit against the largest public company in the St. Louis area.

Last December, Centene reached a $27.6 million settlement with the state of Kansas over its pharmacy benefit management practices for its Medicaid program.

Also last December, a shareholder filed a lawsuit against Centene in the Court of Chancery of the state of Delaware.

The plaintiff, Robert Garfield, has sought “books and records in order to determine whether breaches of fiduciary duty or other wrongdoing have occurred in connection with fraudulent business practices alleged in connection with civil settlements between Centene and state attorneys general in several states, including Ohio, Mississippi, Arkansas and Illinois.”

The Court of Chancery website listed the status of the lawsuit as active. An attorney representing Garfield didn’t return messages seeking comment.

In June 2021, Centene agreed to pay $88 million to Ohio’s Medicaid program to settle a lawsuit over how it charged the state for prescriptions. In a similar settlement that month, Centene reached a $55 million settlement with Mississippi.

Centene last September entered into no-fault agreements with the attorneys general of Arkansas and Illinois to resolve claims related to services provided by its pharmacy benefit manager subsidiary, Envolve Pharmacy Solutions Inc. Centene agreed to pay $15 million to Arkansas and $57 million to Illinois.

In a regulatory filing last year, Centene said it had set aside $1.1 billion to resolve allegations from other states. Two law firms — Liston & Deas and Cohen Milstein in Chicago — have entered into talks with Centene to resolve those matters. Attorney William Liston III and Centene did not respond to messages seeking comment on the status of settlement discussions.

The investigation of Centene by New Mexico’s attorney general focused on concerns that the corporation was “layering fees and not passing on retail discounts to New Mexico’s Medicaid program,” known as Centennial Care.

Centennial Care provides health care services and medications to nearly 1 million New Mexicans, and Centene’s wholly-owned subsidiaries have provided pharmacy benefits and services to Centennial Care since 2019.

The settlement agreement states that Centene’s entities will comply with New Mexico law governing the operation of managed care pharmacy benefit operations and an “enhanced commitment from Centene to provide complete pricing transparency on all pharmaceutical benefits and services” provided to the New Mexico Human Services Department.

Centene provides managed care programs for government sponsored health care plans such as Medicaid and Medicare.

States are PUSHING BACK on DEA wanting to do “data mining” in their PDMP database without a warrant from a judge

The Government Needs to Get a Warrant if It Wants Access to Our Private Health Information

Signing Of Arizona SB1469 on Controlled Substances Monitoring Search Warrants, into Law by Governor Douglas Ducey

The Drug Enforcement Administration is once again trying to access private prescription records of patients — this time in New Hampshire — without a warrant, despite a state law to the contrary. Today the ACLU filed a brief in support of the state of New Hampshire’s fight to defend the privacy of our sensitive medical information against unwarranted searches by law enforcement.

New Hampshire — like 48 other states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico — has established a statewide Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), which logs records of every prescription for a long list of “controlled substances,” including Xanax, Ambien, and many painkillers, filled by pharmacists in the state. The PDMP is intended to function as a public health tool to allow physicians and pharmacists to look up their patients’ past prescriptions for medications that have addictive potential. Because these prescription records are so sensitive, New Hampshire law bars law enforcement agents from accessing the database unless they have a search warrant signed by a judge.

That rule has worked just fine for state and local police, but the federal Drug Enforcement Administration refuses to respect it. The DEA insists that, because it is a federal agency, it can ignore state law and request people’s PDMP records with an administrative subpoena instead of a warrant. Unlike a warrant, a subpoena is issued directly by the agency based on a low legal standard, without requiring the approval of a judge.

When New Hampshire received a DEA subpoena for a patient’s PDMP records last year, the state rightly refused to comply because doing so would violate the state law requiring a warrant. The DEA then sued in federal court, but New Hampshire stood firm, arguing that the subpoena was improper under federal law and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. After losing in trial court, the state appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

The DEA’s most galling argument in the case is that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their prescription records held in the PDMP because of the “third-party doctrine.” Under that doctrine, a person is considered to lose their Fourth Amendment protections in information voluntarily shared with a “third party,” like a company they do business with.

We’ve seen that argument before when the DEA tried to obtain PDMP records in Oregon and Utah without a warrant. But the legal landscape has now changed. That’s because last year in Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court made clear that the third-party doctrine does not automatically apply to sensitive agglomerations of digital-age records. That case was about people’s sensitive location records held by their cell phone companies, but the lesson of Supreme Court’s holding should apply equally to the sensitive digital database of prescription records at issue here.

Our amicus brief, filed with the ACLU affiliates in the First Circuit — New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, and Rhode Island — as well as the New Hampshire Medical Society, argues that  law enforcement agencies, including the DEA, must get a warrant under the Fourth Amendment to access the private medical information in the PDMP database.

As we explain, information about the prescription medications we take can reveal a great deal of intimate and private details about our health, including our medical diagnoses and our doctors’ confidential medical advice. Indeed, this kind of medical information is among the most sensitive data about us. That’s why, for as long as there has been a medical profession, health care providers have been bound by a duty of confidentiality toward their patients’ medical information.

Moreover, this information is not voluntarily shared, in any meaningful sense, with the state’s database. The DEA suggests that people make a choice to give up their privacy protections when they share their medical information with their doctor and pharmacist. But as we write in our brief, choosing between obtaining health care and giving up one’s privacy rights is no choice at all.

The DEA’s aggressive position comes amid intensifying attention to the nation’s opioid addiction crisis. But far from hindering efforts to address that serious problem, strong Fourth Amendment protections are a crucial part of the solution. Successfully addressing drug addiction primarily requires public health approaches, not prosecutorial ones. Easy law enforcement access to medical records not only fuels mass incarceration, it deters patients from seeking necessary medical care.

Requiring the DEA to get a warrant ensures that people’s sensitive prescription records are only available to police when there is a real need. That’s good policy, and good Fourth Amendment law.

How many states are NOT PUSHING BACK on the DEA’s wanting to do a “fishing trip” into a state’s PDMP without having a valid reason and warrant signed by a judge ?  I have read that of the nearly 11,000 Federal DEA employees, >50% sit at a desk..  Is this how the DEA comes to a opinion that they can make allegations against prescribers – that the prescriber is not meeting some – undefined – standard of care and best practices and thus is prescribing one or more controlled substances without a valid medical necessity. They take the prescriber to Federal court, where it is common knowledge that 90%+ of people taken to federal court are FOUND GUILTY.  Apparently our Federal court system is similar to our Grand Jury system where it is claimed that a Grand Jury could indict a “ham sandwich “   https://www.thoughtco.com/grand-jury-in-the-united-states-3368320

 

Harms of Cancer Blood Tests? FTC Healthcare Crackdown: More Smoke Than Fire?

Harms of Cancer Blood Tests? FTC Healthcare Crackdown: More Smoke Than Fire?

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/99249

Welcome to the latest edition of Investigative Roundup, highlighting some of the best investigative reporting on healthcare each week.

New Blood Tests for Cancer May Carry Risks

New blood tests, which look for tiny shards of cancer DNA or proteins, are “a new frontier in screening,” the New York Times reported. However, some experts say the risks of making the tests widely available at this point in time are substantial.

The companies developing the tests say they can find dozens of cancers, and supporters say they can “slash cancer death rates by finding tumors when they are still small and curable,” the article stated. A bill in Congress with more than 250 cosponsors would authorize Medicare to pay for the tests as soon as FDA approves them.

However, companies are not waiting for regulators, the Times reported. One developer, GRAIL, is selling its annual test with a list price of $949, and another company, Exact Sciences, expects to follow suit.

“The companies would like to get the tests approved with studies less rigorous than the FDA typically requires, and they stand to make huge profits if that happens,” according to the Times.

Critics say that finding cancers sooner could mean just as many deaths because, with current treatments, cancers destined to kill are not necessarily cured if found early, the Times reported. Additionally, some people will have a positive test, but their doctors will be unable to locate the cancer. And others will be treated aggressively with surgery or chemotherapy for cancers that would not have grown and spread.

Barnett Kramer, MD, MPH, a member of the Lisa Schwartz Foundation for Truth in Medicine and former director of the Division of Cancer Prevention at the National Cancer Institute, told the Times that he fears the tests will become widely used without evidence they are beneficial. Once that happens, “it is difficult to unring the bell,” he told the outlet.

“I hope we are not halfway through a nightmare,” he said.

More RED FLAGS rules being used by TX Board of Pharmacy – LEGAL or UNCONSTITUTIONAL ?

This appears to be from 2018,  I find it interesting that the TXBOP will hold a PHARMACY responsible for the failure to detect  patterns  of  inappropriate dispensing of prescription drugs is unprofessional practice and constitutes grounds for disciplinary action.  A person/entity that has a pharmacy permit to operate a pharmacy, can only do so.. if there is a state licensed Pharmacist on staff and there is a Pharmacist that is registered with the BOP to be “Pharmacist in charge” and responsible to the BOP for the legal operation of the Rx dept.  With the SCOTUS recently passing down a decision that “RED FLAGS” when involved in the confiscating a individual guns is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.  Could it be considered a “confiscation of a pt’s medication therapy” by a Pharmacist who fails to properly adjudicate perceived RED FLAGS and refuses to fill a pt’s  (controlled ) medication ? I am sure that other states have similar written “red flag rules” , implied or presumed to exist. Hopefully, that many of these – potentially unconstitutional laws/rules – will be challenged in the not too distant future.

 

Click to access You_might_be_a_pill_mill_if.pdf

Texas State Board of Pharmacy “Red Flags” Checklist for Pharmacies YOU MIGHT BE A PILL MILL IF… Check all that apply: (1) Your pharmacy fills a discernable pattern of prescriptions for prescribers who write essentially the same prescriptions for numerous persons, indicating a lack of individual drug therapy. (2) Your pharmacy operates with limited hours of operation or closes after a certain threshold of controlled substance prescriptions are dispensed, and has overall low prescription dispensing volume. (3) Prescriptions presented to the pharmacy are for controlled substances with popularity as street drugs, such as opiates, benzodiazepines, muscle relaxants, psychostimulants, and/or cough syrups, or any combination of these drugs. (4) The prescriptions for controlled substances contain nonspecific or no diagnoses. (5) The prescriptions are commonly for the highest strength of the drug and/or for large quantities. (6) Dangerous drugs or OTC products (such as multi-vitamins or laxatives) are added to the controlled substance prescriptions, maintaining relatively consistent 1:1 ratio of controlled substances to dangerous drugs and/or OTC products dispensed as prescriptions. (7) Prescriptions are authorized by the same prescriber with what appears to be different handwriting on the hardcopy prescription drug order forms. (8) Upon contact with the prescriber’s office, you are unable to engage in comprehensive discussion with the actual prescriber, or he/she is unconcerned about your apprehensions regarding his/her prescribing practices or unwilling to provide additional information, such as treatment goals and/or prognosis with prescribed drug therapy. (9) You rely solely on the prescriber’s representation, or on the representation of the individual answering the phone at the number on the prescription, that prescriptions are legitimate. (10) The prescriber’s clinic is not registered as a pain management clinic by the Texas Medical Board, despite routinely receiving prescriptions from the prescriber for opiates, benzodiazepines, and/or muscle relaxants. (11) Drugs prescribed are inconsistent with the prescriber’s area of practice. (12) The prescriber of the drugs is located a significant distance from your pharmacy. (13) The prescriber has been subject to disciplinary action by the licensing board, had his/her DEA registration removed, or been subject to criminal action. (14) The Texas PMP system indicates that persons are obtaining prescriptions for the same drugs from multiple prescribers or that persons are filling prescriptions for the same drugs at multiple pharmacies. (15) The person’s address is a significant distance from your pharmacy and/or from the prescriber’s office. (16) Multiple persons with the same address present prescriptions from the same prescriber. (17) Persons pay with cash or credit card more often than through insurance. (18) Persons presenting controlled substance prescriptions are doing so in such a manner that varies from seeking routine pharmacy services (e.g., willing to wait in long lines to receive drugs, persons arrive in the same vehicle with prescriptions from same prescriber, one person presents to pick up prescriptions for multiple others, persons refer to drugs by “street names” and/or comment on drug’s color, persons seek early refills, persons travel from outside reasonable trade area of pharmacy). (19) Your pharmacy charges and persons are willing to pay more for controlled substances than they would at nearby pharmacies. (20) Your pharmacy routinely orders controlled substances from more than one drug supplier, or your pharmacy has been discontinued by a drug supplier related to controlled substance orders. (21) Sporadic and non-consistent dispensing volume (including zero dispensing) varies from day to day and week to week, and your pharmacy does not maintain operational hours each week on Monday through Friday. (22) Your pharmacy employs or contracts security personnel during operational hours to prevent problems. (23) Your pharmacy has been previously warned or disciplined by the Texas State Board of Pharmacy for inappropriate dispensing of controlled substances (i.e., corresponding responsibility). If you checked any of the above items, you should review the laws and rules regarding corresponding responsibility and  non‐therapeutic dispensing, especially Board rule §291.29, in the law book or on our website:  www.pharmacy.texas.gov (click  on  Texas  Pharmacy  Rules  and  Laws).    Additional  educational  material  is  available  at:   http://www.pharmacy.texas.gov/Nontherapeutic.asp.    Failure  of  pharmacies  and  pharmacists  to  detect  patterns  of 

inappropriate dispensing of prescription drugs is unprofessional practice and constitutes grounds for disciplinary action.

 

PBM wanting chosen med to be entirely on COST… improved clinical outcomes… may be a distance SECOND CHOICE

Notice that this is a PBM (Express Scripts) is owned by the insurance company https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/cigna-completes-purchase-of-express-scripts and has its own mail order pharmacy. Notice what was read from the letter from Express Scripts to the prescriber that they were MANDATING step therapy – step therapy is starting with the least expensive – or the PBM gets the largest kickback, rebate, discount from the pharma- for a particular med.  From what I heard from the prescriber reading the letter, the prescriber should chose the LEAST EXPENSIVE MEDICATION in this particular class/category.  The particular medication mentioned is typically used to treat ADD/ADHD, another subjective disease/mental health issue.  No test to determine how well – or poorly – the cheapest med would work for the pt and/or how much better that the med prescribed would have worked better than the cheapest med.  I have not had to deal with step therapy in years, but with subjective diseases, will/could the PBM decide any improvement in QOL issues – no matter how small… would/could decide that the particular least expensive med… is clinically significant enough to declare not necessary to try an more expensive meds.

It will be interesting how these PBM will deal with pts who have had pharmacogenomics testing done and this DNA test will clearly show which med  the pt’s metabolism would be the best metabolized …which would indicate optimal improvement of QOL, at lower doses and less side effects and should save all involved out of pocket costs.   https://www.nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/pharmacogenomics.aspx

 

 

New Data on Opioid Dose Reduction—Implications for Patient Safety

Could the data from these studies be much worse if they included the number of chronic pain pts who had their pain management abruptly curtailed,when a office practice is raided by the DEA/FBI/DOJ, the practice closed, all the pt’s medical records were confiscated and all those pts may have anything from close to 30 days supply of their pain medication to just maybe a couple of days or less.  So some pts may have the opportunity to wean themselves down, where others are basically thrown into cold turkey withdrawal.  I have heard horror stories from pts whose prescriber’s office had been raided and closed and the DEA stalled, denied, refused to provide the pts with copies of their medical records. This action by the DEA, almost assures that the chronic pain pts will not find to be accepted as a patient in another practice.  The data from these reports seem to be based on some sort of Insurance/PBM database, those pts being tossed to the curb by the DEA raiding a office practice and their pain meds abruptly discontinued without much documentation, may have not been  included in the data that was used to come to the conclusion of this study(s).

New Data on Opioid Dose Reduction—Implications for Patient Safety

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2793299

In the US, prescribing of opioids for pain reached its peak in 2011 to 2012. By 2020, prescribing per capita had decreased to levels last seen in 1993.1 Whether that reversal delivered some mitigation to an escalating North American tragedy of drug-related deaths remains a matter of anxious debate. Few, however, would contest the view that this ongoing reversal bears with unique intimacy on the 8 to 10 million US individuals who receive prescribed opioids on a long-term basis, or who may yet need them.1 New research on prescription opioid dose reduction should cause us to look upon their situation with fresh eyes, and with concern.

Reductions and stoppages in these patients’ prescription regimens are likely to reflect varied motivations and understandings among physicians and other professionals who care for them. Some may reduce doses out of a belief that the dose reductions confer safety and well-being, a perspective reinforced by studies in which voluntary tapers are achievable or even salutary for some patients. However, it is likely that many clinicians are reacting to a fraught public discourse and to external pressures as well, including measures that rate the quality of their work. According to a metric issued by the National Committee for Quality Assurance and taken up by most payers, patients taking a daily dose more than the equivalent of 90 mg of morphine count as receiving poor care, regardless of their prior dose history.2 Such measures do incentivize either reduction or termination of the care relationship. Unsurprisingly, dose reductions and stoppage have become more common in recent years.3

Some retrospective studies found an association between dose reduction and poor outcomes, such as death by overdose, suicide, or mental health crisis, after comparing patients who underwent such reductions and others who did not. One limitation to such reports is that people who underwent reduction could have differed in important ways from those who did not. Differences in their risk could have spurred both the dose reduction and the outcome. For example, a patient with volatile behavior may be at risk for suicide, and that same volatile behavior could spur clinicians to alter prescriptions. Some may suggest that the dose reduction did not cause a subsequent suicide. If existing studies are confounded in this way, they render an unduly pessimistic portrait of the risk of harm resulting from prescription opioid reduction.

The new study by Fenton et al4 addresses these challenges with 2 methodological innovations. First, they apply an exposure-crossover design, in which each person serves as their own control in the assessment of event frequencies before and after the dose reduction. Second, they attempt to mitigate time-limited volatility in the period before and after dose reduction by focusing on outcomes occurring a full year after the taper was initiated (which they term postinduction).

The article by Fenton et al4 reports on 19 377 commercially insured and Medicare Advantage enrollees who underwent tapering (2008-2017) after a 12-month period of stable doses. Taper was operationalized as a 15% or more reduction in mean daily dose. The exposure-crossover method applies conditional regression models to compare periods after taper (12-24 months) with periods before in the same population, adjusting for clinical covariates such as drug- and alcohol-related diagnoses and demographic characteristics.

Fenton et al4 also report adverse outcomes. Compared with the period before dose reduction, the incidence of hospital or emergency department encounters for drug overdose or withdrawal was elevated by 57% (adjusted incident rate ratio, 1.57), in relative terms, and by 52% (adjusted incident rate ratio, 1.52) for mental health crisis in the 12 to 24 months following reduction.4 The elevations in observed risk were greater for patients whose baseline opioid dose was greater than the equivalent of 300 mg of morphine daily.4 Supplementary analyses comparing tapered patients with those not tapered were concordant: patients at stable dose remained at lowest risk, compared with patients whose doses were lower or higher.

By our count, this is the tenth retrospective comparative study to document an adverse association between opioid dose reduction and patient safety,513 although a gain in safety was shown in one other study.14 We caution that the article by Fenton et al,4 despite its strengths, still cannot fully resolve potential bias from unmeasured factors, because many aspects of the clinical story remain outside of the researchers’ database. Evidence derived from retrospective analysis demands our caution. For that reason, it is deeply regrettable that such caution was absent when many health systems, government agencies, and payers incentivized dose reduction on the basis of retrospective data that were subject to all the same limitations, and many more.15

How should clinicians and health systems respond today, in light of these evolving, cautionary findings on opioid dose reduction? Our view is that opioid dose reduction is likely to offer benefit for some, while harming others. The harms may include worsening pain, distress, or death. Given this uncertain balance of harm and benefit, it would be wise for health systems to stop promoting this change to care. A policy of tapering all patients to doses lower than a specified threshold cannot be supported from available evidence. Quality metrics that incentivize these policies, such as the High Dose Opioid criterion promulgated by the National Committee for Quality Assurance,2 are overdue for retirement. Indeed, experts who assisted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2016 guideline urged that it not be adopted in the first place.16

What about individual care decisions? If an elective change to care involves both potential benefit and risk of serious harm, including loss of life, the longstanding norms of ethical medical care call for informed consent. We see no reason to set these norms aside when discussing dose reductions.

Clinicians will observe that, in some instances, consent will not be forthcoming, despite compelling evidence of harm resulting from prescription opioid therapy. To our view, a lack of consent does not compel a prescribing clinician to continue a treatment that they believe is actively harming that patient. However, that same clinician should proceed with reductions only after (1) documenting evidence of harm, (2) offering a plan to mitigate harm from the reduction, and (3) telling the patient what criteria will be used to decide whether the taper has failed or succeeded. When tapers fail, as many do, then clinicians must be open to reversing them. For this reason, the long-standing adage that opioid tapers must not be reversed, most recently cited in a draft revision to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s opioid prescribing guideline,16 has been worn thin by studies such as this one and the many that precede it. To our view, that adage is not tethered to clear and compelling evidence. It should be set aside.

Finally, whenever consent is sought, it should be in the context of a serious conversation grounded in mutual respect, rather than an attempt to convince the patient to embrace something they do not really believe in. This is because patients—it has been overlooked far too often—are the moral equals of the people writing the prescriptions.

‘We need this stuff’: Scott County initiatives help fight overdoses, addiction – FREE NARCAN VENDING MACHINE

‘We need this stuff’: Scott County initiatives help fight overdoses, addiction

https://www.whas11.com/article/news/local/indiana/scott-county-scott-memoria-lhealth-initiatives-fight-overdoses-addiction-narcan-vending-machine-indiana/417-5ba5579e-1eb2-4d4e-93e1-9713959af748

SCOTTSBURG, Ind. — Scott County, Indiana is home to the state’s newest resource to fight the opioid epidemic and growing concern around overdoses.

Scott Memorial Health received a Narcan vending machine last week. It is one of 19 statewide, providing the medication free of charge.

Another machine was placed in Clark County earlier this year

Facility medical director Dr. John Croasdell said Narcan is a life-saving medication physicians use to bring people back from the brink of an opioid overdose. 

By providing doses free to the public, he hopes to save lives and encourage people to get help. 

“The more that it’s available, the more lives that can be saved and the more people that hopefully will take the next step and get into recovery,” Croasdell said.

According to CDC data, Indiana saw a 32% increase in fatal overdoses from April 2020 to April 2021. 

RELATED: Authorities uncover massive stash of fentanyl, pills in Louisville storage unit

Croasdell said the rise in fentanyl in the community can be a contributing factor. 

“This is a four milligram dose of Narcan and sometimes it’s taken several of those four-milligram doses to get somebody back from the brink,” he said.

The vending machine program is not alone in fighting addiction and opioid overdoses in Scott County. 

Last month, the Scott County Sheriff’s Office and Jail were selected to participate in the “Integrated Reentry and Correctional Support” pilot program.

Known as IRACS, the program, new to Indiana, provides direct, in-jail support for people who are incarcerated and may be dealing with addiction. 

Training began earlier this month, and the program is expected to start in July. 

Lindsey Huff is one of several peer leaders working with the program through the local recovery organization Thrive, which also partnered with Scott Memorial for the vending machine initiative. 

Huff will help incarcerated people navigate the justice system and eventually reenter society. Other leaders from Thrive will help with inmate assessments, recovery resources and care coordination. 

Huff said she was incarcerated at the Scott County Jail in the past. She said a resource like IRACS would have been instrumental in her recovery.

“Every time I got out I wanted to go back to the things I was doing, not because I didn’t want the change, but because I didn’t know how to do the change and I was scared,” she said. “That’s what peer coaching is about, is about being the person that holds on to their hand.”

Huff said helping people with recovery while in custody is crucial and sets them up for success when they are released. 

“They get out of jail, they don’t have family support, the only friends they have are the people still using,” she said. “And sometimes they end up using again, they get in more legal trouble and maybe they overdose.”

Huff is encouraged by efforts from health leaders and the Sheriff’s Office. 

“We’ve just begun. As long as there are people who use drugs, as long as there is fentanyl, we need this stuff,” she said. 

Huff said training for the program began earlier this month and personnel have a few weeks left. They hope to begin screening potential inmate clients in July. 

According to a release from the Sheriff’s Office, eventually, every inmate booked into the jail will be evaluated as a potential IRACS support client.

Breaking: Supreme Court Rules ‘Red Flag’ Gun Laws Unconstitutional – should RED FLAGS used by DEA be UNCONSTITUTIONAL ?

In a recent lawsuit against Walgreens for their Pharmacists filling Rxs that the DEA claimed demonstrated RED FLAGS were being ignored https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/walgreens-priority-was-filling-drug-orders-fast-judge-told/

Catizone, who served as the executive director and CEO of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy from 1988 to 2020, also submitted a 35-page declaration to the court. live testimony was given Thursday from Carmen Catizone, who said Walgreens did not meet the standard of care legally required of pharmacies. Among concerns, from 2003 to 2012, Walgreens had a policy passed on to pharmacists to merely call the doctor who issued a questionable prescription as opposed to doing any other due diligence. During cross-examination, Swanson took aim at the list of “red flags” or warning signs that suggest opioid abuse or diversion that Catizone said pharmacists are required to be on the lookout for.

“You don’t cite any federal or state statute that discloses each of these specific red flags you identify, do you?” Swanson asked, later noting that they also don’t appear in the Controlled Substances Act.

Does this suggest that the DEA is using RED FLAGS that does not exist in the Controlled Substance Act as part of their ALLEGATIONS that the practitioner, vendor (Pharmacy/Wholesaler) have violated the Controlled substance act. If RED FLAGS are unconstitutional involving the confiscating of guns, should they be EQUALLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL in using them in ALLEGATIONS that DEA license/permit holders have violated the Controlled Substance Act ?  What I have seen is that the DEA has observed what addicts, abusers, diverters have done over the years, certain combinations of meds that they had abused- disregarding the very large doses they were taking or other substances legal/illegal taken concurrently, paying cash for Rxs, traveling long distances to see prescriber or pharmacy to fill Rxs and coming to the conclusion – particularly with combo of meds legally prescribed and within recommended doses – that anyone being prescribed these meds – must be a diverter, abuser, addict… because that is what they casually observed being done by addicts, abusers, diverters.

I have heard numerous attorneys state that those people who are taken to FEDERAL COURT – that 90%+ ARE FOUND GUILTY…  With DEA/DOJ/FBI, is it all that they have to do in Federal Court to find a healthcare practitioner/vendor “guilty” is to produce some ALLEGATIONS,  based on some “unconstitutional opinions” and NO REAL FACTS ?  By getting a conviction of a practitioner on such unconstitutional “RED FLAGS”… could that be considered the confiscation of all the medical records of the chronic pain pts of the practice pain therapy, especially when the DEA ..that many have claimed that the DEA refused, declined, stalled off the pts getting copies of their medical records … making them having little/no chance of getting into another practice and getting their pain management reinstated ? Intentionally throwing all those hundred or thousands of pts into cold turkey withdrawal and at risk of premature death and or forced into using the only option that they have to end their unrelenting torturous level of pain – SUICIDE ?

Breaking: Supreme Court Rules ‘Red Flag’ Gun Laws Unconstitutional

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2021/05/supreme-court-rules-warrantless-home-gun-confiscation-is-unconstitutional-in-9-0-vote/

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that warrantless gun confiscation from Americans’ homes is unconstitutional, voting unanimously on the side of a Rhode Island man whose firearms were taken by law enforcement without a warrant after his wife expressed concerns that he might hurt himself.

According to Caniglia v Strom, a lower court had previously determined that police confiscating the guns without a warrant fell under the Fourth Amendment’s “community care taking” exception, but a 9-0 vote from the nation’s top court struck down that ruling.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the unanimous opinion for the Supreme Court, stating that law enforcement can execute “many civic tasks in modern society,” but there is “not an open-ended license to perform them anywhere.”

“The very core of the Fourth Amendment,” Thomas wrote, is the “right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable search and seizure.”

Some exceptions to the 4th Amendment do exist, including “exigent circumstances,” Forbes reported. For instance, if an officer sees an individual about to shoot another person through the window of a home, that officer has the right to enter the home to prevent the attack.

Another exception – the one on which this case was based – is called “community care taking.” The Supreme Court previously determined that police can bypass the warrant requirement to perform “community care taking functions, totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute,” noting a situation when police took a gun from the trunk of an impounded vehicle without a warrant.

“In reaching this conclusion, the Court noted that the officers who patrol the ‘public highways’ are often called to discharge noncriminal ‘community care taking functions,’ such as responding to disabled vehicles or investigating accidents. But searches of vehicles and homes are constitutionally different, as the Cady opinion repeatedly stressed,” Thomas wrote in the court’s opinion.

In the case, Mr. Caniglia and his wife were arguing when he put an unloaded gun on their table and said, “shoot me now and get it over with.” Following the argument, Caniglia’s wife called the non-emergency police line, leading to a visit from law enforcement. The police convinced Mr. Caniglia to go to the hospital for psychological evaluation, despite disagreeing that his behavior was “abnormal” or “agitated.”

While Mr. Caniglia was on his way to the hospital, his wife told the police that he had two pistols in the home, at which point the officers searched the home without a warrant; however, Mrs. Caniglia couldn’t provide legal consent because the police lied, telling her that Mr. Caniglia had consented to the seizure of his firearms.

The officers subsequently located and confiscated the two handguns, prompting Mr. Caniglia to sue the police for allegedly violating his 4th Amendment rights.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion for the ruling in which he addressed existing “red flag” laws that also call into question Fourth Amendment rights.

“This case also implicates another body of law that petitioner glossed over: the so-called “red flag” laws that some States are now enacting. These laws enable the police to seize guns pursuant to a court order to prevent their use for suicide or the infliction of harm on innocent persons,” Alito wrote.

“They typically specify the standard that must be met and the procedures that must be followed before firearms may be seized,” he continued. “Provisions of red flag laws may be challenged under the Fourth Amendment, and those cases may come before us. Our decision today does not address those issues.”

In March, the Biden administration urged the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court’s ruling, arguing the actions taken by law enforcement to confiscate the petitioner’s firearms without a warrant were “reasonable.”

“The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness,” the DOJ’s brief stated. “For criminal investigations, this Court has generally incorporated the Warrant Clause into the Fourth Amendment’s overarching reasonableness requirement, but it has not generally done so for searches or seizures objectively premised on justifications other than the investigation of wrongdoing.”

“The ultimate question in this case is therefore not whether the respondent officers’ actions fit within some narrow warrant exception, but instead whether those actions were reasonable. And under all the circumstances here, they were,” the brief added.

 

what happened behind the “COVID-19 epidemic curtain” ?

 

How many chronic pain advocates in the chronic pain community – are really interested in the community as a whole


AMERICAN PAIN AND DISABILITY FOUNDATION:
We are all set up to go and advocate for a child with a government representative from the State of Tennessee. I knew these kids were something from the beginning and they were willing to fight for themselves and for us! I put the time, money, sweat, and most of all the effort in because I saw no future on our current path.These kids have been an absolute blessing to APDF and the pain community and it turns out IMHO the only ones who can save themselves and maybe us too if they don’t mind😉! These awesome kids have fought and died like a soldier to save pain patients and if that government official doesn’t take this to heart 💔 they have no intention of doing so for us. I am so proud of these kids words can’t describe what part of my heart cares more for them. An accident brought us together but fate kept it going! Although, the ridiculous attacks in the pain community are very real and vicious. I knew only the pure of heart would rule the day! This couldn’t of came at a better time as their funding was cut by nastiness in our own community, but it shows there is a plan and a future for pain patients of any size and age. On their first fight for themselves hopefully they will show us how its done and come together immediately. I have total faith in these kids from the start and knew something brought us together. I’m excited and I believe this will be a battle of all CPP battles and even if its just for the kids, I’m okay with that too! I’m an adult and we can handle what we are dished out as wrong as it seems. But its even way more wrong when it’s your baby suffering. These kids don’t fight and argue and the only fighting they do is to stay alive! My only hope is they go into this battle and fight as hard as they can for the right reason’s and that reason is no more suffering for everyone! No republicans and no democrats and no pain groups just kids who are the most deserving people on earth and maybe we will get lucky in passing! 😘 GO FIGHT WIN GUYS! ❤❤❤❤
#americanpaindisabilityfoundation #CANCERSUCKS #rarediseaseawareness #treatoursolgers ##cppkids #fightstartsnow

Tulsa mass shooter allegedly gunned down his doctor after asking for help with pain

The above incident happened about 10 days ago and one person who claims to be a chronic pain advocate made a few videos about this incident, some believed that this person stated that the doctor DESERVED TO BE SHOT,  others believed that it was implied, others stated that is was suggested.

After those videos were posted,  many in the chronic pain community basically went ballistic .. some who were chronic pain pts, some who were both chronic pain pts and healthcare providers and some who were just healthcare providers who deal with chronic pain pts.  Ir really doesn’t matter what was actually said, there is a old saying “what you perceive, is what you believe ..”

And what did this “advocate” do… stirred up the “tribe of minions” aligned with this “advocate” and they started attacking a advocate from APDF, who has been successfully advocating for pediatric chronic pain pts in Vanderbilt Hosp in Nashsville, Many of these kids are END STAGE CANCER PTS.   He even took Vanderbilt to court when Vanderbilt stated that he could not advocate for the kids…even with the parent’s agreement/consent.  Vanderbilt LOST !!!…  Vanderbilt had a “NO OPIATE POLICY” and didn’t want to change it  – even for pediatric chronic pain pts.  Here is picture (dressed up to go trick-treating last Oct ) of one of the “little angels” that got to enjoy her final months of life, because of better pain management during her last months.  Without this advocate intervention on this kid’s behalf, she would have spent Halloween in a torturous level of pain, unfortunately she has now passed .   This advocate does the majority of advocating ” off the radar” and doesn’t not seek the spotlight for doing good !
These minions came out besmirching this advocate’s good deeds and throwing out untruths and your basic “mud slinging”… that often happens within political elections. I suspect that this same group will come after me, once this post goes up on my blog…  I have INTENTIONALLY not mentioned any names – they know who they are – and if you see anyone “slinging mud” toward me after this post… you will know who they are as well.