Drug Rehab Centers – Epidemic – in good old FLORIDA ?

How to Find a Good Drug Treatment Program and Avoid the Bad Ones

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/how-find-good-drug-treatment-program-avoid-bad-ones-n776101

Where there is addiction, there is hope.

That’s what experts like Michael Botticelli, who was the Obama administration’s “drug czar,” want people to know. Botticelli is a firm believer that people suffering from drug and alcohol addiction can get well.

“One of the things that is really important to show is that people can and do recover,” said Botticelli, now executive director of Boston Medical Center’s Grayken Center for Addiction Medicine. “When they get access to quality care, they do get better.”

But not all drug treatments are created equal. An NBC News investigation found that federal loopholes have allowed unscrupulous drug treatment centers in South Florida to turn the nation’s opioid crisis into gold. They’ve billed insurance companies for millions of dollars’ worth of counseling and testing without helping addicts recover.

Because so many individuals and families seek treatment in moments of crisis, Botticelli said, they can be vulnerable to treatment centers more focused on profit than care.

Related: Ohio Sues Big Pharma, Blaming Drugmakers for Causing Opioid Epidemic

How can families seeking treatment for a loved one learn to separate the “bad actors” from the good?

Experts and law enforcement officials have created lists of warning signs and questions that patients and their families should ask.

Watch Out For:

● Generic websites or advertisements that don’t clearly identify what treatment programs the site or advertiser represents. They may just be collecting phone numbers and email addresses for patient “brokers,” who will then try to connect you with whatever treatment center is paying them.

● Whether the person you’re speaking to receives referral fees from the treatment center. “Brokers” are paid by the head to get you or your loved one into a particular treatment center, whether or not it’s the right one for you.

● Offers to pay for travel. If someone is offering to cover travel to Florida or another location, call the treatment facility or your insurance company to confirm that the person is an employee. In certain states, paying for travel may also be considered an illegal inducement.

● Offers to pay for insurance coverage or to waive co-pays or deductibles. See above.

● Offers of free rent from “sober homes” — the offsite homes where addiction patients are often housed — in exchange for attending a particular drug treatment program.

● Daily or near-daily lab tests that cost thousands of dollars.

● A treatment center that doesn’t ask for in-depth information about the patient or doesn’t ask for access to any therapists or counselors previously used by the patient. Without this information, the center won’t be able to assess whether the patient is a good fit.

● Unsolicited referrals from marketers or hotlines to treatment centers out of state. Treatment centers that aren’t in your state may be considered out of network by your insurance company, meaning the centers will be able to bill the insurers more.

Questions You Should Ask:

● What’s the staff-to-patient ratio? The lower the ratio, the better. Are the counselors certified chemical dependency counselors?

● Does the facility have a medical director on staff? Are the doctors associated with the program certified by the American Society of Addiction Medicine?

● Can the treatment center handle other medical needs, like mental health issues or diseases like hepatitis C?

● Are licensed staffers available 24 hours a day?

● What kinds of support are offered after treatment? Does the program have an “alumni” program that offers followup, and does it help families put together an after-care plan?

● Is the program able to adapt to the medical history, trauma background, culture or gender identity of the patient?

● Is the center in-network with your insurance? If not, what out-of-pocket expenses should you expect?

● Is the program transparent, or does it simply tell you what you want to hear?

Related: Florida’s Billion-Dollar Drug Treatment Industry Is Plagued by Overdoses, Fraud

Not every program is a fit for every person. Schedule a tour and do research online. In addition to looking at the treatment center’s website and social media presences, read reviews, learn what others are saying about their treatment experiences and check whether the program is accredited.

Image: Reflections Drug Treatment Center
The former operator of this drug treatment center in Florida was recently sentenced to 27 years in federal prison on charges that included sex trafficking and fraud. NBC News

Additional Resources:

There are other resources out there. The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration provides a toll-free, confidential hotline along with a treatment services search tool. The Partnership at DrugFree.org has a helpline and tips so families know what to ask. Similarly, Treatment Research Institute has a step-by-step guide of Questions to Ask Treatment Programs.

There’s also a vibrant network of online groups have also cropped up, like those run by the nonprofit Magnolia New Beginnings. Founder Maureen Cavanagh said members in the closed groups are vetted, so once they’re inside, they can trust that the advice they get is good and can feel free to voice their pain and provide emotional support.

“They realize, sometimes for the first time, that there are other people going through this and they’re not alone,” Cavanagh said. “The worst thing in the whole world is to feel like you can’t talk to anybody about this.”

Bill Clinton issues warning on opioid crisis: ‘It’s going to eat us all alive – another CLUELESS BUREAUCRAT ?

Bill Clinton issues warning on opioid crisis: ‘It’s going to eat us all alive’Clinton issues warning on opioid crisis: ‘It’s going to eat us all alive

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/bill-clinton-issues-warning-on-opioid-crisis-%E2%80%98it%E2%80%99s-going-to-eat-us-all-alive%E2%80%99/ar-BBD7rrt

Former President Bill Clinton addressed the opioid and drug crisis on Saturday, telling mayors from across the country that the U.S. is far behind in dealing with the issue.

“It’s going to eat us all alive,” the former president warned at the U.S. Mayor’s Conference in Miami.

“We all have to acknowledge that we should have seen more of this before. But what we have to acknowledge now is that we have a chance to deal with this in a comprehensive way, and we’re not close,” the former president said.

The issue has remained a top concern for lawmakers, with Senate Republicans facing criticism that proposed cuts to Medicaid in their bill unveiled this week to repeal and replace ObamaCare could exacerbate the national epidemic.

While the legislation reserves $2 billion to help people deal with substance abuse and addiction, critics say the major cuts to Medicaid spending would not help the crisis, and the $2 billion fund would not make up for the cuts.

Republicans including Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have expressed concerns over the bill’s Medicaid cuts.

“I’m proud of the Republican governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval, for being one of the very first governors to take to Medicaid expansion because he knew that he depended upon young workers, many of whom were here as the first of their generation,” Clinton said Saturday.

Sandoval and fellow Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller have expressed deep concerns about the Senate GOP legislation due to Medicaid cuts.

Heller on Friday became the fifth Senate Republican to announce his opposition to the bill, further complicating GOP leaders’s plans to get the legislation through the upper chamber

Karen Paddocks Tragic Story ~ PAIN NATION with Ken Mckim. Karen committed suicide due to unmanaged CFS leaks, and other issues

 

 

What is Administrative Law Judge hearing?

In the Medicare system – like most other insurance companies – have an appeal process for denial of payment of claims…

All those various insurance providers do not want pts to know but NOTHING – in regards to denial of claims is in CONCRETE… they all have appeal processes… they don’t have to tell you about the process – UNLESS YOU ASK.. then they are required to provide you their appeal process in writing.. .today.. that might be a web page.

A Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) hearing is the last/final appeal in the Medicare system.  This is normally handled by a retired judge or attorney.  The pt will present “their case” as to why their denied claim should have been paid for by Medicare/Medicaid.

Here is the CMS website describing the appeal process.  https://www.medicare.gov/claims-and-appeals/file-an-appeal/appeals.html

Generally speaking, >50% of people who appeal their denied claims to this level will get their claim APPROVED. Often the ALJ hearing officer may not have an extensive medical background and will attempt to apply “logic” to what is medically necessary for the pt and how approving the requested service would help a pt’s quality of life from deteriorating further or improving their quality of life.

Typically, these hearings are pretty INFORMAL and the ALJ will have the written denial determination from the carrier and it is up to the pt to demonstrate how the product/service that is requested is basically medically necessary and within the guidelines of what Medicare/Medicaid should be providing.

The only cost to the pt in dealing with the hearing is traveling to where ever the in person hearing is held. If that is too far a distance for a pt to travel, they may be able to take advantage of a Video-Teleconferencing center which would be more convenient.

Sometimes, the fact that the pt requests a in-person ALJ hearing… the carrier will reconsider their denial and reverse their earlier denial and approve the claim, because they know that they will probably get their denial overturned and will end up paying for it anyway.

 

 

Is CHRONIC PAIN really a “DISEASE” ?

disease

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/disease

/dis·ease/ (dĭ-zēz´) any deviation from or interruption of the normal structure or function of any body part, organ, or system that is manifested by a characteristic set of symptoms and signs and whose etiology, pathology, and prognosis may be known or unknown.

Pain is NOT CONTAGIOUS … Pain is typically part of a disease state within the “symptoms and signs” of the underlying cause of the pain. What a lot of people forget – including healthcare providers – that what medical science knows/understands about the human body is DWARFED by what it DOES NOT UNDERSTAND.

Thus there are untold number of conditions that result in a person having to deal with chronic pain that medical science has yet the knowledge in how to cure… the only thing that they have in their “tool kit” is something to attempt to treat/manage the symptoms and signs. Fortunately chronic back pain can easily be treated just following MarketWatch guidance.

Pain can impact a person in both physical and mental.  Pain is normally accompanied with some degree of depression and anxiety.  For those who have never found themselves in that “deep hole” of a serious depression, will not have a clue as of the mental pain associated with being there.  There is no explaining it to someone who hasn’t been there… it is futile ! 

People can be inflicted with “mental pain” without having physical pain… either an imbalance of the three major brain chemicals, defects in the brain structure itself or external stimuli or “triggers” that the body responds with a mental instability.  Some refer to these mental issues as a person having “demons in the head” and/or “monkeys on their back”. They can be a constant (painful) mental torment to the person.

These mental issues when combined with certain economic or living environmental issues… a person can be convinced by others around them to try some substance to attempt to silence those demons/monkeys.  They may first experiment with alcohol, marijuana or some other legal/illegal substance.  “Addiction” can happen rather rapidly… because the person “likes how it makes them feel”… the demons and monkeys are silenced 🙂

What is commonly referred to as a “high” could perhaps be just a period of “mental solitude” from their mental tormentors ?

Are subjective diseases… (pain, depression, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, mental health) really diseases or just signs/symptoms of a underlying physical/mental issues… either structurally or chemical defects ?  There is no diagnostic test that can measure the impact or intensity they have on the person.

Should we just try to minimize such a person’s mental/physical pain and optimize their quality of life and ability to function ?

 

DEPENDENCE VERSUS ADDICTION … AND OPIOID USE DISORDER

painDEPENDENCE VERSUS ADDICTION … AND OPIOID USE DISORDER

www.rallyagainstpain.com/2017/06/23/dependence-versus-addiction-and-opioid-use-disorder/

It’s no secret that things are changing day by day for chronic pain patients.  The CDC guidelines have not been viewed as “guidelines”; rather they have been viewed as law, causing States to implement their own stringent restrictions on opioid prescriptions by legitimate physicians, regardless of the patients’ medical condition, their confirmed medical diagnoses, and past history of the “tried and failed” methods of conservative treatment.  When there is no conservative treatment or even invasive procedures available to help, many people suffering from severe, chronic pain, must rely upon opioid treatment in order to attain and maintain the highest quality of life possible.

Many patients have gone years or decades on a successful pain management plan; a plan which many times includes opioid treatment.  These treatment plans provided pain relief which would allow these patients to remain functional.  Do these patients “depend” on this treatment to maintain their ability to function?  Yes, of course.  Do diabetics rely on medicine, in conjunction with lifestyle changes to maintain function?  Yes, of course. Do diabetics always incorporate exercise, diet, and lifestyle changes to control their disease?  Many times … not so much.  The same scenario goes for a multitude of disease processes.  Further, the prescription medication used to control these disease processes have side effects and some can be abused.  So to be dependent upon medication which keeps the patient stable is not necessarily a bad thing, even if it includes opioids.

Most physicians and patients know that when one has used opioid therapy for years, decades or more, a sudden discontinuance of opioids can and does lead to severe consequences for the patient.  In fact, it can be fatal.  Does this mean that the patient is addicted?  Of course not.  The patient simply relies upon the medication to keep them functional.  When taken appropriately, opioids are not necessarily a bad choice for patients.  The CDC guidelines even state that opioids are to be used “when the benefits outweigh the harm”.  Let’s take a look now at addiction.

Addiction is defined, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine as follows:

“Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.  Addiction is characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response. Like other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission. Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability or premature death.”

By the very definition of addiction, it is clear that chronic pain patients who use their medication appropriately are NOT addicted.  They are dependent on the medication necessary to maintain quality of life and avoid loss of function.

Our final area of discussion is relatively new, yet perhaps as important as understanding the difference between dependence and addiction … Opioid Use Disorder.  This diagnosis is relatively new and this author could find no clear definition or criteria which  defined the criteria used for diagnosis of this disorder.  From what I could ascertain, the best, most clearly stated definition of Opioid Use Disorder is from the American Psychiatric Association. http://pcssmat.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/5B-DSM-5-Opioid-Use-Disorder-Diagnostic-Criteria.pdf

The American Psychiatric Association gives the following as criteria for use of the diagnosis “Opioid Use Disorder”:

A problematic pattern of opioid use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by at least two of the following, occurring within a 12-month period:

1. Opioids are often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended.
2. There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control opioid use.
3. A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain the opioid, use the opioid, or recover from its effects.
4. Craving, or a strong desire or urge to use opioids.
5. Recurrent opioid use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home.
6. Continued opioid use despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of opioids.
7. Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of opioid use.
8. Recurrent opioid use in situations in which it is physically hazardous.
9. Continued opioid use despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by the substance.
10. Tolerance, as defined by either of the following:
a. A need for markedly increased amounts of opioids to achieve intoxication or desired effect.
b. A markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of an opioid.

Note: This criterion is not considered to be met for those taking opioids solely under
appropriate medical supervision.
11. Withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following:
a. The characteristic opioid withdrawal syndrome (refer to Criteria A and B of the criteria set for opioid withdrawal).
b. Opioids (or a closely related substance) are taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.

With some States now having “involuntary commitment laws”, it is important that if your doctor places this diagnosis on your billing statement or on your medical records, unless you meet the criteria for this diagnosis, you may wish to consider discussing it  with your doctor.  Unless he has reason to believe that you meet the criteria for this diagnosis, it should be taken off your chart.  Perhaps your doctor doesn’t fully understand or maybe he has another source of information from which he is basing his opinion.

In this time of ever-changing laws and “guidelines” with respect to the treatment of chronic pain, it is important to stay vigilant and be involved in the decision-making process of your medical care.  Stay informed.  Take the time to discuss things you don’t understand with your doctor.  Let your doctor know of any decline in functioning and describe the things that you were formerly able to do which you now suddenly cannot do if your medicine is decreased, discontinued, or changed.  Communication is the key to a successful approach to your illness or disability.

 

Author:  Lana Kirby (317) 441-2888

#Veterans & Americans United for Equality in Medical Car

 

 

Prescribed Painkillers Didn’t Cause the Opioid Crisis

Prescribed Painkillers Didn’t Cause the Opioid Crisis

https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/a3z98b/big-pharma-didnt-cause-the-opioid-crisis-most-pain-patients-dont-get-addicted

People who need pain meds aren’t usually the ones who get addicted.

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine produced stark headlines:

“A 5-sentence letter helped trigger America’s deadliest drug overdose crisis ever.” (Vox)

“The One-Paragraph Letter From 1980 That Fueled the Opioid Crisis” (The Atlantic)

“1980 NEJM Letter the Genesis of the Opioid Crisis?” (Medscape).

But while it’s clear that this letter was grievously misused by pharmaceutical companies intent on selling opioids—the truth about the real risk of addiction among pain patients and the influence of the now-infamous “Porter and Jick” paper is far more complex. And it matters a great deal because if we continue to misunderstand the problem, we’ll continue to pursue harmful and ineffective solutions that so far have only increased the death rate.

The letter in question was entitled “Addiction Rare in Patients Treated with Narcotics.” It noted that the researchers had examined records of more than 10,000 hospitalized patients treated with opioids for pain and found only four new cases of addiction.

 

The new study tracked how the paper—which had no details about methodology whatsoever— was cited 608 times. It also found that citations increased dramatically at the time when the makers of Oxycontin were marketing the drug as being unlikely to cause addiction, which was no coincidence.

“I think the letter—more correctly, the way in which it was mischaracterized—played an important role in helping reassure doctors that opioids could be used safely over the long term,” says David Juurlink, lead author of the study and a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto.

The narrative is evil drug companies pushed greedy doctors to prescribe unnecessary drugs, which turned innocent pain patients into people with heroin addiction.

At the same time, the story of the 1980 Porter and Jick letter and what has now become an unprecedented opioid overdose crisis has been spun by the media and some activists into a simplistic and misleading narrative. The idea is that the overdose epidemic was caused by evil drug companies pushing greedy doctors to prescribe unnecessary drugs, which turned innocent pain patients into people with heroin addiction, who are now overdosing on street fentanyl.

That, however, is not exactly what happened. Yes, the drug companies irresponsibly and reprehensibly misused the legitimate concern that pain was being undertreated to sell massive amounts of product. Yes, Purdue Pharma inaccurately claimed that Oxycontin was a less addictive opioid—and that its effects lasted longer than they really did. Yes, salespeople pressured many doctors into prescribing far more than made sense.

 

“The simple story is that addiction happens all the time when people get opioids for pain and that simple story is clearly wrong,” says Stefan Kertesz, associate professor of preventive medicine at the University of Alabama.

The research actually shows that people who developed new addictions in recent years were overwhelmingly not pain patients. Instead, they were mainly friends, relatives, and others to whom those pills were diverted—typically young people. Among the older patients, many who appeared to be newly addicted had actually relapsed or never recovered from prior addictions: some faked pain to get pills from well-meaning doctors; others got them from pill mills where shady physicians wrote prescriptions for cash.

The simple story that addiction happens all the time when people get opioids for pain is clearly wrong.

How do we know this—and why is this story so different from the one we hear in the media? For one, the National Household Survey on Drugs has asked about the sources of misused opioids in recent years: this representative survey of tens of thousands of Americans shows that less than a quarter of people who start misusing these drugs obtained them directly from one or multiple doctors. Half of new users, in fact, say they got them from a friend or relative for free.

Secondly, an early study of people being treated for Oxycontin addiction found that 77 percent of them had also taken cocaine—and it’s hard to imagine that this was supplied medically or that these pain patients went out in search of a cocaine dealer once they found out how nice opioids are. In addition, only 3.6 percent of people who misuse prescription opioids ever even try heroin. Although 75 percent of heroin users start with prescription opioids these days, very few prescription opioid users actually go on to heroin addiction.

 

Read More: Heroin Has Never Discriminated

And this, again, speaks to the unlikelihood that many prescription pain patients became addicted to heroin without having had a prior history of drug problems.

Just think about it: you’re a middle-aged woman with a bad back who uses a wheelchair. You’ve never even tried marijuana—let alone bought it on the street from a stranger. You aren’t internet savvy, so you’re not going to buy from the Darknet. And you aren’t street savvy, so you’re hardly likely to seek out the nearest bad neighborhood and start asking the people you usually cross the street to avoid if they can get you some “Um, do you still call it smack?” If you do work up the courage to try this, you are extremely likely to get ripped off or worse.

So, what is the real risk to pain patients from being prescribed opioids? This is a hotly debated topic, with the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and news media being fond of saying that “up to 26 percent” of people exposed become addicted. This is pretty much the scariest figure available, but note that this means that nearly three-quarters don’t get hooked.

But this number cannot possibly be accurate. Some 70 percent of the population is exposed to medical opioids during their lifetime. If 26 percent of these people became addicted, we’d expect to see tens of millions of people with opioid addiction and hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths. The true addiction figure is roughly 2.5 million, or about 1 percent of the adult population, and the actual number of fatalities is horrifying enough, but it was just around 33,000 deaths in 2015.

 

If opioids were highly addictive for pain patients, we’d expect to see tens of millions of people with addiction and hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths.

Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and her colleague, Tom McLellan, the former deputy drug czar, reviewed the literature on addiction risk during opioid treatment for chronic pain for the New England Journal of Medicine in 2016. These authors would seem to have the most reason to exaggerate these numbers—since government agencies and research scientists tend to want the most money and attention to the problems they work on. However, they say that among people taking opioids long term, “rates of carefully diagnosed addiction have averaged less than 8 percent in published studies.”

Says Juurlink of this number, “I think it’s on the high side,” but he adds, “Here again, we don’t have good real-world [studies] following people from the start of therapy until addiction or not, and we have this bewildering inconsistency in how addiction is defined.”

Read More: This Drug Could Help End Opioid Addiction

 

Moreover, among patients who just take opioids short-term—such as those who have acute pain from surgery or dental work—studies find that the risk is even lower. For example, one study of more than 640,000 surgical patients who had never previously taken opioids found that few used the drugs for more than three months after recovery from surgery: rates varied from less than 0.12 percent for people who had C-sections up to 1.4 percent for those who had knee surgery. And keep in mind that most of this long-term use—as we can see from the other studies—isn’t addiction, just pain treatment.

The recent study that may be most comparable to Porter and Jick (though with better design and clearer methodology) was published in the Journal of Urology in May. It studied records from 675,000 people who had undergone urologic surgery, including treatment for painful kidney stones. The rate of either new opioid addiction or overdose? Just 0.09 percent or 1 in 1,111 cases. In other words, not far off from what was found by, yep, Porter and Jick.

Still, Juurlink cautions, “I’m wary of big data studies that try to ascertain subtle outcomes like addiction. I suspect coding for addiction is fairly specific but insensitive. The corollary of this is that the absolute risk will be higher than a database study suggests.”

And also, as we can see from the higher numbers above, chronic, long-term exposure is linked to a higher addiction risk than acute exposure—up to 8 percent compared to less than 1 percent. That means it was never appropriate for drug companies to use the 1980 letter to assess risk of addiction in chronic pain treatment. But they did.


Watch more on pain treatment from Tonic:


Nonetheless, the idea that patients who take medications as prescribed are the cause of this problem is inaccurate. While the media loves to highlight “innocent victims” who became addicted through medicine, the fact is that this group is a minority. Medical use surely increased access to the drugs—but the people who got hooked tended to do so while using medication that was either prescribed for someone else or otherwise distributed illegally.

 

And this has clear implications for what needs to be done. The first is to stop thinking that simply cutting the medical supply will work. People who start opioid use illegally are not going to have problems finding substitutes for prescription medications on the illicit market—indeed, shunting them away from medical sources will increase their risk of dying.

This is why the current crackdown is failing hard: it’s increasing harm by pushing people from drugs of known dose and purity to those with unknown dosages, filled with impure and deadly stuff like fentanyl and its derivatives.

Read More: Police Officer Overdoses Just From Brushing Fentanyl Off His Uniform

That’s not to say that prescribing practices shouldn’t change: research finds that 67 percent of surgical patients do not take all of the opioids they are prescribed. Limiting initial prescriptions to several days with refills only as needed will help dry up this supply, with little harm to patients. Similarly, ensuring that chronic pain patients have been given appropriate access to alternatives before starting long-term opioid use makes sense—as does making sure patients are benefiting.

But what we’re doing now goes much further than this. Thousands of pain patients report that their doctors have either cut them off entirely or involuntarily tapered them to doses that aren’t sufficient—due to increasing scrutiny from medical boards, insurers, and police. This is inhumane and does nothing to prevent addiction. In fact, more than 90 percent of all addictions start when people are in their teens or early 20s: the people we need to be most careful with when prescribing opioids are not typically older folks in chronic pain, but youth.

 

American drug policy tends to make irrational swings from being too relaxed about opioid prescribing to being too harsh. Perhaps if we actually tried to understand how and why people really become addicted we could find a happy medium.

Did the CDC exceed its legal authority in releasing opiate dosing guidelines ?

By the very definition of the CDC’s name Center for Disease Control…  that typically involves the dealing with the treatment of diseases.. including the guideline of when/what vaccines should be given and the ability to treat or quarantine people who are contagious with a communicable disease that could cause a epidemic or pandemic.   Think potential of EBOLA outbreak in Africa and a few people that came to the USA with it.

Giving vaccines and/or treating contagious disease is typically a ONE TREATMENT PLAN FITS ALL…

PAIN IS NOT A DISEASE it is a SYMPTOM OF A DISEASE  … and ONE TREATMENT PLAN WILL NOT TREAT ALL…

So did Tom Frieden.. the former head of the CDC, over step the authority of the Federal CDC in establishing and publishing opiate dosing guidelines ?

Although the committee chosen by Frieden met behind closed doors and its members were supposedly to be kept anonymous… many names have leaked out and the committee was seemingly stacked with those who are “opiophobic” and/or had a financial vested interest in the rehab industry.

Again, since this committee seem to focus on the treatment of the mental health disease of addiction.. which is not a contagious disease and requires highly individualized treatment… once again did the CDC over step its legal authority to act ?

Did Frieden and the committee members know or should have known that they were outside of their legal authority and published these guidelines in hopes that many entities would adopt these guidelines and they would become – by sheer adoption – common practice and be considered best practices and standard of care and if anyone challenged the constitutionality of the CDC authority to issue these guidelines and was successful.. that the guidelines would be so ingrained into majority of medical practices that they would remain in place… since a prescriber can establish whatever rules they wish for their practice and if the pt is not happy with the practice’s rules they can find a another healthcare provider to take care of the pt’s needs ?

Harmful effects of UNTREATED PAIN

Another reason to DUMP THE CHAINS ?

Hi there I have a question I’m disabled I’m on disability I have disability Medicaid but Walgreens making me pay cash for my insurance I believe their discriminating against me they even made me change psychiatrist which I did last month I had him for ten years but I changed to local psychiatrist so they would fill my anxiety medication even though I had refill on it from my old one I didn’t transfer it but now this month they insist for me to pay cash for my prescription s from my chronic pain dr all 5 of them being on disability my income is challenging enough having to pay for my medication s is putting me in tough spot my insurance will pay for it but they said my dr is cash dr but there are no chronic pain drs that except my disability Medicaid is it illegal to pay for visit and use my insurance for prescription Walgreens is telling me it is I’m crying as I write this I’m so confused thank you for any help you can provide with this issue

There are some details missing from this email.. but.. WTF… a Pharmacist telling a pt that they have to change doctors… from one the pt has been seeing for TEN YEARS and then forcing the MEDICAID PT to PAY CASH for FIVE PRESCRIPTIONS ?

A person has Medicaid because they are POOR…

A person in such a situation should file a GRIEVANCE/complaint with www.cms.gov  800-MEDICARE  against the Pharmacist and their employer

Then there is the boards of pharmacy here is a link to all the BOP’s websites where most/all have a complaint form https://nabp.pharmacy/boards-of-pharmacy/

I would expect the local news media would be interested into looking into this situation… because if there is one pt that it has been done to.. there has is most likely more have had it done to them..

If you want to DUMP THE CHAINS… here is a link to a website that will help find a independent Pharmacy by zip code

http://www.ncpanet.org/home/find-your-local-pharmacy

Some Pharmacists consider themselves healthcare providers… others apparently see themselves as REVENUE GENERATORS for their employer without concern for the overall welfare of the pt.