BY
NORMAN J CLEMENT RPH., DDS, NORMAN L.CLEMENT PHARM-TECH, MALACHI F. MACKANDAL PHARMD, IN THE SPIRIT OF WALTER R. CLEMENT BS., MS., MBA., BELINDA BROWN-PARKER, IN THE SPIRIT OF JOSEPH SOLVO ESQ., INC.T. SPIRIT OF REV. C.T. VIVIAN, JELANI ZIMBABWE CLEMENT, BS., MBA., IN THE SPIRIT OF THE HON. PATRICE LUMUMBA, IN THE SPIRIT OF ERLIN CLEMENT SR., WALTER F. WRENN III., MD., JULIE KILLINGWORTH, LESLY POMPY MD., CHRISTOPHER RUSSO, MD., NANCY SEEFELDT, WILLIE GUINYARD BS., JOSEPH WEBSTER MD., MBA, BEVERLY C. PRINCE MD., FACS., NEIL ARNAND, MD., RICHARD KAUL, MD., LEROY BAYLOR, JAY K. JOSHI MD., MBA, ADRIENNE EDMUNDSON, ESTER HYATT PH.D., WALTER L. SMITH BS., IN THE SPIRIT OF BRAHM FISHER ESQ., MICHELE ALEXANDER MD., CUDJOE WILDING BS, MARTIN NJOKU, BS., RPH., IN THE SPIRIT OF DEBRA LYNN SHEPHERD, BERES E. MUSCHETT, STRATEGIC ADVISORS
WHEN MEDICINE COLLIDES WITH LAW
I am not sure when the practice of medicine collided with law enforcement. It probably happened on a small scale when insurance companies attempted to control healthcare providers‘ reimbursements. Medical coding became the standard for refunds.
Physicians were now required to bill based on the time spent with a patient. EMRs made doctors spend more time on their computers than talking to patients. Physicians were charged with insurance fraud for overbilling and underbilling. They were charged with insurance fraud for excessive procedures. Then came the opiate epidemic.
Now health care providers are accused of “overprescribing” and prescribing “highly addictive” medication, causing the opiate epidemic and being responsible for the increase in drug overdose deaths even though there was no scientific evidence to support those claims.
The 2015 CDC report on fentanyl overdose deaths failed to separate illegal fentanyl from medically prescribed fentanyl. Then in 2016, the CDC issued guidelines in an attempt to guide PCP in prescribing opiate pain medication. These guidelines were flawed from the beginning.
First, they believed that pharmaceutical companies and physicians were the cause of addiction and drug overdose deaths. They failed to realize that the addictive process was due to opiate receptors in the brain and other parts of the body and the physiological action of opiates.
No consideration of the role of the liver in the metabolism of these drugs was given. No consideration of the negative effects on chronic pain patients was given. The CDC never considered that they had no role in determining the doctor-patient relationship regarding pain management.
Even today, they still have a voice in an area they are not qualified to speak about. No decisions made on a background of false principles can be considered policy. Because of the CDC guidelines and the misapplication of those guidelines, states moved to pass laws taking patients’ care out of physicians’ hands and putting their care in the hands of unqualified individuals.
THOUSAND UNABLE TO GET PAIN CARE TREATMENT
State drug monitoring was used to compile data against physicians. Physicians were falsely accused, incarcerated and convicted. Their medical and DEA licenses were revoked once they were charged and before conviction. Their patients had their medication reduced or stopped.
Thousands of patients now unable to get life-sustaining medication went to the streets for relief, overdosed, and died. Others committed suicide. Physicians fearing incarceration stopped prescribing opiate pain medication. Some physicians retired because they could not safely prescribe opiate pain medication that they knew their patients needed.
KENNETH A. POLITE, A MISGUIDED PROSECUTOR
Then on June 27 2022, the United States Supreme Court voted 9-0 that a physician could not be charged with a crime for prescribing a controlled medication that they were authorized to prescribe. The case was Ruan vs US. In some areas of the country, the government dropped the charges against physicians. In others, trials are still pending.
In New England, Kenneth A. Polite, an assistant AG who accused physicians of prescribing illicit drugs, announced a new task force to go after doctors. Addiction is real. The fact that drug overdose deaths are increasing is also factual. Just as factual, we have no consistent scientific approach to treatment. However, criminalizing medicine has only exacerbated the problem. We need to sit down and develop an effective solution based on facts with the aid of medically qualified individuals.
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“It has clearly been decided by the #CDC, #DEA, #PROP, and some state governments that killing pain patients from complications of untreated or under-treated chronic, severe pain by denying adequate access to the only medicine which controls such pain is permissible even desirable.“
Walter F. Wrenn III M.D.
FOR NOW,
YOU ARE WITHIN
THE NORMS
LOW HANGING FRUIT
