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Doctors hope to fight substance abuse by limiting opioid prescriptions, but it may cause another crisis for those with chronic pain.
Kate Snow speaks with a patient struggling to manage her pain with less than half of her old prescription for opioid pills and patch tonight on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt.
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I find this article very interesting, if you notice all the references/foot notes have to deal with mostly only one conclusion about substance abuse/addiction.
There is not one mention if the CDC really had statue authority of even being able to generate/publish such opiate dosing guidelines.
I suppose that could be because that was not part of their mission/goal of writing this letter.
Does this just prove that anyone wanting to write a letter to justify a predetermined conclusion can find ample reference material to prove their point.
I would bet that someone could write a short article on a person being admitted to a hospital or has died after eating peanuts – it could be determine to be severely allergic to PEANUTS, however a large number of people could eat peanuts and never have a adverse reaction.
Likewise, someone could be charged with driving under the influence if they have taken a opiate, muscle relaxant, or benzo especially if they are naive to the medication.
Likewise, if the pt was prescribed a opiate post surgery and took a dose at a later date for a severe headache, pulled muscle or some other very painful issue – this would be considered MISUSE – for taking the medication for some health issue that the medication was not prescribed for them.. even though it was originally prescribed for them.
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Please share – Our very own C-50 Maria Higginbotham, from WA state – who was featured in the HWR report and many media articles and now will be on NBC Nightly News Tuesday, April 2, 2019. Thank you Maria for continuing to fight while being dangerously and inhumanely tapered. You are such a great example to all of us. Hoping Jan Shoop and I can perhaps meet up with you next week!!
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I have seen this posted on many FB pages.. with a lot of conclusions that apparently has NOTHING TO DO WITH REALITY..
Most insurance companies have a limit of 90 days supply of a Rx med at ONE TIME…
It would appear that CAREMARK – the PBM (Prescription Benefit Manager) is just observing the terms of their contract.
Providing the pt with > 6 vials at a time would have exceeded the days supply limit of 90 days per her policy.
Most insurance companies will refill a Rx when 80%-85% of the days supply has been taken – that would be around 68 -72 days.
I have read the letter SEVERAL TIMES and NO WHERE does it say that they are changing her DAILY DOSE.
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Dear Mrs. Bolling,
I want to extend my sincerest apologies for continually dragging the circumstances of your son, Chase Bolling (RIP), passing back into the limelight. You son, like my sister, Missy ‘Runt” Rose was an addict. They had an illness which brought pain & suffering to their families.
Last year, I did attempt to contact your husband, Eric Bolling, but he refused to call or communicate in any form. I also wrote and posted a letter to him shared via his Tweeter account. His response was to block me. Today your husband continues to use the tragedy of your loss in a pathetic attempt to recover his career that he destroyed; no one else is to blame. To date, he has not reached out to question why my anger continues to expose his lies harming so many Americans.
His actions are leaving my wife struggling for her life along with millions of others that require pain medications to survive. I wonder what a difference your husband might have made in Chase’s life if he had spent as much time as he does now with him while he was alive instead of sending perverted pictures of himself to women.
My wife of 32 years has a mechanical heart valve which limits her options for medical care. She has safely used opioid medications for years without incidence of overdose or diversion. The same goes for millions of Americans who suffer from Chronic Pain Disease. Our medications do not give us a high or even complete relief from our conditions which presently have no known cures. These medications allow us to continue leading productive lives and spending time with our children and grandchildren.
With my pain from injuries incurred during 11 wonderful years as a Marine managed, I was able to counsel young adults/children about alternatives to drug seeking behavior. I was able to be a high school teacher where I mentored one of the most popular clubs on campus. My kids were able to do much good through community service projects with being some healthy and fun, while some were strictly life lessons. We fed the homeless; we adopted an orphanage. These activities are detailed in Christian, Marine, Father or Addict if you care to read a little about myself. I was able to open many eyes while my pain was adequately managed and now? It is a nightmare for a once proud Marine to be forced to crawl on his hands and knees to the bathroom. Then again, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18. Right?
However, your husband, Eric Bolling Sr., is going around the country with Mrs. Trump, with his crocodile tears dictating national healthcare policy while people are dying slow painful deaths. Carla Howard, Dawn Anderson, Rory G. Hosking, & so many others. Is this how you want your son remembered? As the author of genocide against children suffering the horrible effects of cancer, the elderly, veterans, the chronically ill, minorities, the poor?
Believe it or not, but these policies are the same genocidal policies implemented by Adolf Hitler on the German people before the start of World War II. The video “Caring Corrupted” on youtube explains in detail how nurses and doctors abandoned children outside in the cold, rounded up the disabled from their homes, taking them to “special” centers for elimination. The only difference in 2019, our doctors are sending us home so our families may watch our slow deterioration into hell and then mercifully death.
I’ve begged your husband to hear us out and to stop this madness to no avail. (Dear Mr. Eric Bolling.” Sent and published online on March 14, 2018.) I’ve begged President Trump, & Mrs. Trump to hear our cries for of mercy; all of which have been ignored. Meanwhile, mass media continues to promote this madness although they receive numerous stories from patients now suffering AND factual research which contradicts the nonsense being spouted by your husband & Mrs. Trump.
Research government officials have had even before the falsified HHS/CDC guidelines were published in March 2016. Such as, the denial of pain medications is a DEATH SENTENCE received by former VP Joe Biden, as Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs in testimony provided by Dr. Alex Deluca describing the horrors we now face by the denial of pain medications (Why Untreated Chronic Pain is a Medical Emergency: Alex DeLuca, M.D., FASAM.) In 2009, the National Institute of Health confirmed the report stating undertreated or untreated pain increases the patient’s chance by 68% more than a person suffering from cardiovascular disease and 49% greater chance than all other diseases combined. (Severe chronic pain is associated with increased 10-year mortality.) I realize how hard it is to admit “I am wrong” which is why I am sure so many in Washington and the media are ignoring the truth. But, how many of us suffering here tonight must die before enough is enough?
Again, I do apologize for continuing to share the truth behind your son’s death. Chase Bolling died with Cocaine, Xanax, ILLEGAL fentanyl, and marijuana in his system. He intentionally purchased and ingested these drugs from the street. There was nothing accidental about his death as your husband continues to claim.
It is for these reasons; I cannot stop doing everything in my power to protect the life of my wife from the actions of your husband. As a Marine, my oath is to protect this country from violations to our Constitution and our ability for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is my responsibility as well as EVERY American to stand tall and honor all the men and women who have gone before to protect these rights which I defended as a Marine. It is our responsibility to end the forced suffering to millions of Americans through proper medical care without government or your husband’s interference.
I am sincerely sorry for your loss but Chase, the same as my sister, Runt, chose DEATH.
We, the Chronic Pain Patients of America choose LIFE!
PLEASE give us that chance.
Respectfully,
Robert D. Rose Jr.
BSW, MEd. USMC
Semper Fidelis
PS: Mrs. Bolling, if you would like to speak to me directly, please don’t hesitate to give me a call: 423–794–8241…
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/politics/dea-money-counter-records.html?partner=IFTTT
WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration secretly collected data in bulk about Americans’ purchases of money-counting machines — and took steps to hide the effort from defendants and courts — before quietly shuttering the program in 2013 amid the uproar over the disclosures by the National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, an inspector general report found.
Seeking leads about who might be a drug trafficker, the D.E.A. started in 2008 to issue blanket administrative subpoenas to vendors to learn who was buying money counters. The subpoenas involved no court oversight and were not pegged to any particular investigation. The agency collected tens of thousands of records showing the names and addresses of people who bought the devices.
The public version of the report, which portrayed the program as legally questionable, blacked out the device whose purchase the D.E.A. had tracked. But in a slip-up, the report contained one uncensored reference in a section about how D.E.A. policy called for withholding from official case files the fact that agents first learned the names of suspects from its database of its money-counter purchases.
That instruction, it said, “was intended to protect the program’s sources and methods; criminals would obtain money counters by other means if they knew that the D.E.A. collected this data.”
A preamble said the D.E.A. and the inspector general worked together on redactions, and press officers for both declined to comment on the inadvertent disclosure. The D.E.A., which is an arm of the Justice Department, provided a statement responding to the inspector general’s findings, pledging fealty to the rule of law while citing “the importance of protecting the techniques and procedures that D.E.A. agents rely upon to protect our nation.”
The report cited field offices’ complaints that the program had wasted time with a high volume of low-quality leads, resulting in agents scrutinizing people “without any connection to illicit activity.” But the D.E.A. eventually refined its analysis to produce fewer but higher-quality leads, and the D.E.A. said it had led to arrests and seizures of drugs, guns, cars and illicit cash.
The idea for the nationwide program originated in a D.E.A. operation in Chicago, when a subpoena for three months of purchase records from a local store led to two arrests and “significant seizures of drugs and related proceeds,” it said.
But Sarah St. Vincent, a Human Rights Watch researcher who flagged the slip-up on Twitter, argued that it was an abuse to suck Americans’ names into a database that would be analyzed to identify criminal suspects, based solely upon their purchase of a lawful product.
Ms. Vincent, who wrote a report last year criticizing “parallel construction” — the practice of concealing an intelligence program by reobtaining the same data, through a traditional targeted subpoena or other measures, to submit it as court evidence — also flagged a 2008 email cited in the report in which a D.E.A. official wrote, “Unless a federal court tells us we can’t do this, I think we can continue this project.”
Because the D.E.A. was hiding the program, she pointed out, no judge would have an opportunity to evaluate it.
The report described a cursory review by D.E.A. lawyers but said the agency never developed a comprehensive analysis for why it was lawful for it to use the statute that authorized administrative subpoenas to obtain bulk records. The statute permits gathering records that are “relevant or material” to a drug investigation. Citing the D.E.A.’s “uniquely expansive use” of this subpoena authority, the report called that failure “troubling.”
In the spring of 2013, the report said, the D.E.A. submitted its database to a joint operations hub where law enforcement agencies working together on organized crime and drug enforcement could mine it. But F.B.I. agents questioned whether the data had been lawfully acquired, and the bureau banned its officials from gaining access to it.
The F.B.I. agents “explained that running all of these names, which had been collected without foundation, through a massive government database and producing comprehensive intelligence products on any ‘hits,’ which included detailed information on family members and pictures, ‘didn’t sit right,’” the report said.
Then, in June 2013, Mr. Snowden leaked a trove of files from the N.S.A., bringing to light that the agency was collecting Americans’ domestic calling records in bulk — and setting off an uproar.
An intelligence court had secretly blessed the N.S.A. effort under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which similarly permitted the government to collect records that were “relevant” to a counterterrorism investigation. A federal appeals court in New York later rejected that interpretation of the law, and Congress ended that practice and replaced it with the USA Freedom Act in 2015.
Other bulk data collection or exploitation programs existed. The New York Times reported in November 2013 that the C.I.A. was using the same law to collect bulk records of international money transfers handled by companies like Western Union — including transactions into and out of the United States.
And the inspector general report also addressed two other D.E.A. programs that focused on call records, and whose existence was already public.
The first is the Hemisphere Project, which The Times first reported in September 2013. It has involved AT&T analyzing its vast database of historical logs about Americans’ phone calls on behalf of counterdrug agents. A section of the report that discusses what appears to be Hemisphere — its name is redacted — says it is still operating.
The other was a D.E.A. program that used administrative subpoenas to collect bulk logs of outgoing international phone calls from the United States to countries linked to drug trafficking. The Justice Department disclosed its existence, which began in the first Bush administration, in a 2015 court filing, and it was later the subject of a detailed report by USA Today. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had ordered the D.E.A. to shut it down in September 2013 — the same time it shuttered the money-counter purchase records program.
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WASHINGTON — Are health insurance policies creating nightmares for physicians and hazards for their patients? A new study finds that nearly nine in ten doctors believe barriers set by insurance plans have led to worsened conditions for patients in need of care.
Researchers with Aimed Alliance, a non-profit that seeks to protect and enhance the rights of health care consumers and providers, say that doctors are so fed up with the constant headaches caused by insurers, two-thirds would recommend against pursuing a career in medicine, and nearly half (48%) are considering a career change altogether.
For the study, the organization polled 600 physicians in the U.S. practicing either family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, or obstetrics/gynecology. The group sought to understand the extent to which insurance policies impact primary care physicians, their practices, and their patients on a day-to-day basis. They also wanted to get a better understanding of mental health issues among providers, as well as the causes behind the national provider shortage.
Researchers found that physicians don’t think very highly of health insurance companies, and believe they’re putting patients at risk with policies such as prior authorizations ahead of filling prescriptions. In fact, 87% of doctors say patients’ conditions have grown worse because of such red-tape regulations, and 83% worry the patients will suffer prolonged pain as a result.
Prior authorizations are especially bothersome for doctors. More than nine in ten (91%) of those surveyed think the policy delays necessary care for patients. Similarly, the same number of doctors agree insurers engage in “non-medical switching,” which forces patients to take less costly — but potentially less effective — medicines.
Such policies are stressing many physicians out. Thirty-seven percent say half or more of their daily stress is caused by insurance issues, and 65% feel they’re facing greater legal risks because of decisions made by insurers. The vast majority (85%) are left frustrated by such issues, and many admit to taking their anger and emotions out on their staff and even family members.
“I can understand why many of the respondents reported that they would not recommend this career to anyone else,” Dr. Shannon Ginnan, medical director of Aimed Alliance, tells StudyFinds. “As practitioners, much of our time is spent on burdensome paperwork required from health insurers for our services to be paid for. This prevents us from spending as much time on patient care as we would like, and it doesn’t take much for all this paperwork to interfere with the services that we provide.”
To Ginnan’s point, the survey showed that 77% of doctors have had to hire more staffers to handle the heavier administrative load from insurance work. Ninety-percent say they have less time to spend with patients because of the burden.
As for the aspect of insurers’ policies that doctors would like to see changed most, the majority (55%) agreed on an insurers’ ability to override the professional judgment of physicians. About nine out of ten (87%) respondents felt that insurer personnel interfere with their ability to provide individualized treatments for each patient.
Beyond the harm that doctors say insurance policies cause patients in need of care, they also agree that patients are taking a hit in their bank accounts too. Doctors believe that insurers are contributing to the rising cost of healthcare more than anything else, including pharmaceutical companies, government policies, lawsuits, or hospitals.
The organization hope their study will provide lawmakers solid data when attempting to reform health care laws and regulations related to utilization management and provider shortages.
The survey was conducted on behalf of Aimed Alliance by David Binder Research.
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So the monthly list price of your insulin has gone from $391 in 2014 to $594 in 2018, THAT’S UNACCEPTABLE!! But who’s to blame??
It must be the drug manufacturer, right?? NO!! When you look at what the drug manufacturer keeps, it actually lowered from $147 in 2014 to $135 in $2018. They are getting less!
It must be the pharmacy jacking up the price to make a huge profit, right??? NOPE!! The pharmacies are down to making $7 for the months Rx in 2018, when they need to average $11 to stay in business. That is why Pharmacies are closing at a record pace!!
Then Who??? IT’S THE MIDDLEMEN!! You know, the ones that have no work, time, money, college education, student loans, business investment or business loans involved!! No research and development, no cost of employing brilliant scientists that develop and bring life savings drugs to market!
IT’S the THIEVING PBM MIDDLEMEN taking $432 from the middle for doing a $1 job !!
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