Do you think you had a moral obligation to try to get your client help to detox? Just curious...

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@audioidkid

They get paid either way. Try again. You are paying for a doctor to see you. They get the same payment whether you get some oxycontin or some penicillin.
As I said, that isn't most doctors, and they'll likely eventually get in trouble if they are violating the rules. It's not like those same doctors would be unemployed without those clinics either. I just think it's stupid to think that most doctors are just worried about the big bags of money they make on writing prescriptions considering they don't get paid to write them and they risk losing everything if they are caught. I'm sure it happens but in most cases they'd probably actually make more money "treating" them rather than saying take this.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Synthetic marijuana should not be used by anyone other than those who wish to become better drivers after smoking it.

No I don't have a legal obligation and considering I have no morals I didn't have one of those either.

But seriously, I didn't know about the alcohol use till after he died. I had suspicions, but no idea it was as bad as it was. And I had no control over him getting the meds, he was doing it outside the confines of work comp. I also wasn't aware of just how bad it was till right at the very end when he was in my office and I could see how bad he looked face to face. So, i had some idea about his condition, but not the full scope of it. And then the question comes up, if I did know what could I do about it? He lived alone and was estranged from his family so its not like I could call a family member. And if I mentioned it to him directly I doubt it would've made a difference. Later on I talked to his sister and got a very different story than the one he gave me. Apparently they had had several interventions with him and because of that he stopped talking to them altogether. So its not like he was open to talking about it and changing.

On top of that, if I piss him off there's the very real chance he fires me and hires a new attorney. Happens all the time in work comp. If that happens I lose thousands of dollars so I have to be very careful when discussing matters with clients that they don't want to talk about.


But, every situation is unique. After that happened I had a different client who became addicted to vicodin. In that case, the evidence was pretty clear and it was documented as part of his work comp case. Because of that I was able to talk to him about it without crossing any boundaries and I ended up getting the work comp insurance company to pay for a 30 day stint in rehab. That was another situation where the neuro surgeon wanted him to stop taking drugs, but the pain clinic kept giving him scripts. They got him off the vicodin by prescribing siboxin (sp) which is a great SHORT-TERM drug for getting off opiates, but this pain doctor kept him on it for a year, turning him from a vicodin addict to a siboxin addict.

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Cool thanks for the info.

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@audioidkid

You're missing the point. The patients who are only going to see the doc for the meds would not be coming in for office visits if they weren't going to get drugs at the end of it. So to say the doc gets paid either way is incorrect. If he charges $100 for an office visit and has 5-10 addicts coming to see him/her every day that's $500-$1000 a day the doc would make that he otherwise wouldn't.

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I agree, it definitely isn't "most doctors". But, there are definitely a good number of pain doctors who are pretty much just giving scripts to anyone who comes and asks for them. I see it/hear about it all the time in my line of work.

As to your second point, like I said earlier, these docs do make a lot of money from taking office visits from drug addicts. Keep in mind these aren't exactly Northwestern Memorial type doctors, but small business owners/doctors working out of tiny offices or strip malls. For a lot of these guys, the daily office visits from drug addicts is a significant part of their business.

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I know a guy who got kicked out of the army for fake weed. How pathetic, but means to one end or another, I guess.

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