Posted on 02/07/2019 6:45:03 AM PST by grumpygresh
Wisconsin’s two U.S. Attorneys have sent letters to 180 physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners.
“prescribing opioids without a legitimate medical purpose could subject them to enforcement action, including criminal prosecution.”
“They were identified through Medicare data for two years,”
(Excerpt) Read more at painnewsnetwork.org ...
True that.
‘Is it because they are cowards and would rather terrorize doctors and providers?’
same old story; kick sand in the face of the 98 lb weakling, not the big, bad bully...
And next year there will be a new Top 180 prescribers hit list.
Addicts are overwhelmingly young people who started using recreationally. How many young people appear in the Medicare database?
“Why can’t the DEA go after the drug dealer, MS-13, cartels pushing heroin and fentanyl.“
Those people are dangerous.
L
The beauty here, is the people who need powerful pain medications won’t be able to get them. That’s how this works. That’s how it always works. “We wouldn’t want you to get addicted” they’ll lecture, to some poor bastard with two weeks to live, in the hospital.
Meanwhile, the druggies are sawz-alling off catalytic converters to scrap for $50, causing thousands of dollars of damage + insurance premiums going up, so they can buy more of this crap on the black market.
Break your arm....take two Ibuprofen and call me in the morning.
“I doubt any primary and most surgeon will be willing to prescribe opiates when they get these letter.
You’re right. It’s being proved in Michigan. Not sure I have a good handle on it but, I’ve been looking for a new primary, and every one I’ve talked to said up front they won’t prescribe you pain-killers whether or not you even ask them about it.
Apparently some law went into effect last summer that requires when prescribing pain-killers that a physician must first consult the state’s database that supposedly has a complete list of all the prescriptions you’ve gotten in your life.
It appears that people in pain are being increasingly referred to pain specialists. I have my first meeting with one today at 2 p.m. Lately I’ve been taking 1600-3200 mg of ibuprofen per day for neck and back pain. Not supposed to be taking NSAIDs. Was getting Tramadol from my primary but she won’t do it any more.
Doctors from WV opened “Pill Boxes” in SW Va a few years back. It took the feds quite a while to root them out. They were basically acting as drug dealers for addicts and getting federal money to boot.
if you are dying, you get morphine
You are correct. I understand wanting to get this under control, but it is turning into a nightmare for legitimate pain patients.
But it's just as surely true that there are quacks and crooks who hand it out like candy...for a price.
At the hospital where I worked for decades we had a regular patient (we called them "frequent fliers") who had genuine hemophilia...a very nasty and troublesome condition.However,he was also addicted to narcotics and we had reason to believe that he was selling them as well.
To get narcotics from us he's deliberately traumatize his feet and ankles...which would cause him to bleed badly.And he'd get the narcotics,Finally,our legal department sent him a letter saying that he was welcome to come to us for care whenever he wanted to...but that he'd get no more narcotics from us.
We never saw him again.
Who knows how he's getting treatment for his hemophilia!
I feel for ya’. I have neck and upper back pain due to stenosis, bulging disks, and scoliosis. I take Mobic daily. On top of that...I’ve had sciatica. Ouch.
That isn’t correct at all. They will tell people, like our family, that my father is moaning because he is trying to talk to us. The man was in agony, in the last year of his life. Not til hospice was he even given an oxycodone.
“If you are dying, you get morphine.”
If you are dying in pain, you _hope_ you get morphine. This is the problem.
Because recreational addiction & abuse is such a huge problem it bleeds over into the legitimate use realm. Consequently people who need “pain management” or whatever may not get it, or in the quantities they need.
Then there’s the problem of pilferage or theft. Hiring low quality individuals as nurses and techs generally means things like the hired help become addicts themselves and start skimming off the medications. Gramps won’t mind a sugar pill in lieu of his prescription meds will he?
I've had both my hips replaced...at a large,well known hospital.The first one was 10 years ago,the other one was last year.Both times the surgeon gave me a 30 day supply of oxys (90 tablets).I took them for three days and sold the rest.
Only kidding about selling them...I flushed about 80 both times.The fish in our local river got a real buzz!
All up and down Southern Appalachia
NE Tenn, E. Ktky, SW WVa
I knew some of the Physicians involved
There are DEFINATELY some bad apples out there
Some of the Physicians were impaired themselves
Drugs, Alcohol, Dementia, Psychiatric
“...Because recreational addiction & abuse ....”
I just moved back into the state I grew up in and not too far from my little WV hometown. I’ve been gone for close to 40 years but that’s a separate story. I have been quite taken back by stories of opioid use here. In reconnecting to many of my old friends I find they all have a story of a child, grandchild & niece\nephew, etc. of opioid abuse in their family. However none of the stories start out with “ Oh so-n-so couldn’t find a job, got laid off etc and was so psychologically distraught they put themselves into an opioid haze & died or came close to it.” NONE OF THE STORIES! All of them were “So-n-so had a great job good education and were using drugs essentially recreationally (booze, pot then something better - opioid!)....” ALL STORIES WERE STORIES OF ABUSE & TRADGEDY FROM RECREATIOAL DRUG USE! Basically these incidents were the fruits of the 1960s-1970s where recreational drug use went mainstream into the culture!
Not a scientific study but an anecdotal one, still it makes me look at claims that regarding evil drug companies & local doctors were somehow responsible with skepticism! Sounds to me that people who say this are more like making excuses for the local cultural change. Which they might bear some responsibility for!
At my orthopedic surgeons office there is a sign saying that no pain pills will be given until after an operation and then for only 10 days.
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