Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »
William R. Bauer, MD, 82, a neurologist in Port Clinton, OH with over 50 years of experience was indicted
William R. Bauer, MD, 82, a neurologist in Port Clinton, OH with over 50 years of experience was indicted
www.doctorsofcourage.org/william-r-bauer-md/
William R. Bauer, MD, 82, a neurologist in Port Clinton, OH with over 50 years of experience was indicted on 200 counts of distribution of controlled substances (fentanyl, oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and other drugs) and 14 counts of healthcare fraud.
As usual, the DOJ used “outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose” as their “crime”. But as repeated with every post, this is the illegal creation of a crime that the DOJ is now doing repeatedly against innocent physicians across the country. In order to create the “crime”, they claim that the doctor
1. Gave inadequate examinations and got inadequate medical histories;
2. Failed to establish an objective pain diagnosis;
3. Failed to consider non-opioid treatment options;
4. Prescribed high doses of opioids to patients without regard to any improvement in pain level, function or quality of life;
5. Failed to consider a patient’s state of addiction;
6. Ignored signs and warnings that patient family members were stealing substances prescribed to the patients;
7. Ignored warning letters about improper prescribing;
8. Patients running out of pills from overuse and frequently requesting early refills,
9. and other actions.
They try to make it sound so bad, but the 200 charges are for each individual prescription for controlled substances written to 7 patients between 2015 and 2018. Then they use Medicare fraud charges on top to try to force him to take a plea because fraud charges are hard to defend against due to the vague laws written just for that purpose.
The fraud charges are that the epidural injections and trigger point injections he administered were done “without medical necessity”. The indictment states that the injections “failed to meet procedural requirements”. According to the indictment, imaging must be used during the procedure so that the injection can be reimbursable by insurance, and that if the injections are ineffective, the billing is thereby “fraudulent”. I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen a requirement of imaging for payment for procedures. And that just increases the cost. Ridiculous!!
The CPT billing for trigger point injections is delineated HERE. There is no mention of the requirement for imaging.
According to the indictment, the imaging he used documented improper needle placement which caused the injections to be ineffective for their stated purpose and, therefore, fraudulently billed to insurers. This is ridiculous. A doctor with Dr. Bauer’s experience doesn’t need a fluoroscope to tell he has put the needle in the right place. The proper placement for an epidural is felt, not seen. Doctors, beware if insurance is going to take ineffectiveness of a procedure to declare fraud. Probably 50% of the procedures done in the country are ineffective.
But the main point of the indictment was the opioid prescriptions, as stated by U. S. Attorney Justin Herdman:
“This physician is accused of recklessly prescribing thousands of doses of fentanyl and other painkillers to people for no legitimate medical purpose.”
Even though the Controlled Substance Act implicitly states that only the DOCTOR can determine legitimate medical purpose:
(56) (C) the practitioner, acting in the usual course of professional practice, determines there is a legitimate medical purpose for the issuance of the new prescription.
But then the USA follows the tried and true DOJ labeling of doctors as “drug traffickers” in order to use the CSA against them. This is an example of government overreach, failure to follow Supreme Court decisions, creating crime where there is no crime, and simply making up laws to fit their purpose—attacking doctors for money.
They then black mark doctors with their comments that are then copied and printed by the media, contaminating the jury pool with propaganda and ignorance, claiming legitimate prescriptions are contributing to the fake government-created “addiction epidemic”. When are the American people going to get wise? The real crooks are the agents and agencies that reap the illegal rewards of attacking physicians for doing their job, such as those quoted in the indictment:
1. U. S. Attorney Justin Herdman
2. FBI Agent Eric B. Smith
3. DEA agent Keith Martin
4. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost
5. DHHS-OIG
6. Assistant U. S. Attorneys Gene Crawford and Ava R. Dustin.
Even the Sandusky register, which has in the past, written articles about the good Dr. Bauer is doing for his patients (March, 2019) now spews the propaganda and minimalize what they’ve written in the past, instead of exposing the government lies. Dr. Bauer appeared several times on the Register’s public affairs show “Between the Lines” stating his advocacy for chronic pain patients caught in the opioid crack down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rpJ593sSQ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06zl-31_xUs
Some of his patients, claimed that he saved their lives. “He’s a good guy,” “Thank God for Dr. Bauer,” One of Dr. Bauer’s patients, a veteran, admitted to attempting suicide in the past numerous times. He described Dr. Bauer as a “lifesaver.”
Dr. Bauer is president of the Huron County Medical Society. Their website has information for chronic pain patients who have been refused treatment or had their prescriptions denied by a pharmacy. So he becomes a target of the US government? Stand up against a bullying government and they will attack you. Is that the message?
Meanwhile, the Kasich administration, which pushed hard to reduce the supply of pain pills, saw drug overdose deaths rise every year from 2011 to 2017, from 1,772 in 2011 to 4,854 in 2017. Ending legitimate treatment of pain such as this attack on Dr. Bauer, actually is what has created the fake drug epidemic by forcing legitimate pain patients to street drugs to treat their pain.
Filed under: General Problems | 7 Comments »
A CVS Health Subsidiary: Opinion: Aetna’s behavior is unacceptable
Opinion: Aetna’s behavior is unacceptable
www.salinapost.com/2019/08/23/opinion-aetnas-behavior-is-unacceptable/
In the state of Kansas, the media has quietly reported about issues with Aetna Better Health of Kansas. Aetna BH is a Kansas Medicaid Contractor with a $1 billion a year contract. They serve approximately 100,000 Kansans.
Since 7/1/2019, all payments have ceased for many local providers. This includes behavioral health providers as well as medical. Long story short, Aetna can’t get their stuff together and providers are not being paid for services rendered. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment gave notice to Aetna at the end of July that they had 10 days to get their act together. Aetna did submit a plan, which KDHE shot down as not good enough. I have yet to hear a new plan or a deadline.
I am one of those providers in Salina. To put it in perspective, consider your monthly income being cut in 1/2, but you still put in the hours of work. Imagine being told day in and day out the issues are “escalated” and “we are trying to fix this.” I hear it every day, “we cannot tell you when you will get paid.” I, like most other providers, have done nothing wrong and essentially are working for free due to inefficient, incompetent, and unknowledgeable staff and leadership at Aetna that our tax dollars fund. Why is this important and how does it impact me? You are paying into the funds that in turn pay me. You continue to pay into that fund, but no money is paid out. So where is the money? We aren’t talking just a few dollars. My clinic has not been paid thousands, nearing the $10,000 mark.
There has been such an encouragement for mental health care over the last few years and this is fabulous. Along with the push for better access to mental health care comes the challenge of finding providers that accept Medicaid. If this situation continues, many Medicaid providers will likely be forced to close their doors or will stop accepting Medicaid period. My specialty is victims of severe trauma, foster children, and early childhood. They deserve the best care possible, and I am one of those experienced, educated, and skilled clinicians able to treat these patients. But not free. At the end of the day, I am running a business that has expenses. I’d also like to be able to take care of my family.
You can help by contacting our local representatives Randall Hardy and Diana Diercks. Tell them this is unacceptable and that you support the local Medicaid providers. You can call KDHE and the Governor’s office to also offer support. Perhaps with a united effort, providers will be rewarded for their tireless work.
Filed under: General Problems | Leave a Comment »
Patients prefer INDEPENDENT PHARMACIES over chains
Consumers like their pharmacies, but CVS trails rivals in survey
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/consumers-like-their-pharmacies-but-cvs-trails-rivals-in-survey/561314/
Dive Brief:
- As disruptors like Amazon threaten to upend the business, the pharmacy industry still yields high levels of customer satisfaction in both brick-and-mortar and mail order segments, according to a J.D. Power survey.
- Almost nine out of ten consumers prefer face-to-face interaction with their pharmacists, but customers who talk with their pharmacists via email or online chat are equally or more satisfied with the interaction. The poll also found that, though adoption of digital tools like mobile apps has leveled off, the 20% of consumers who use a pharmacy’s app report satisfaction scores as much as 23 percentage points higher than those that don’t.
- Among brick-and-mortar chain pharmacies, Good Neighbor Pharmacy ranked highest in terms of customer satisfaction, followed by Health Mart and Rite Aid. For mail order pharmacies, Humana was most highly rated, followed by Kaiser Permanente and UnitedHealth’s OptumRx. CVS pharmacy, whether in-store or mail order, was below average in terms of customer satisfaction.
Dive Insight:
Traditional pharmacies have been wary of disruption as market giants like CVS and Walgreens pivot to prioritizing at-home delivery and outside players like Amazon dip their toes in the prescription drug space.
Yet this new data underscores a preference for human interaction, as consumer adoption of new digital tools is flattening and traditional pharmacy players like Good Neighbor and Health Mart have higher consumer satisfaction.
Notably, CVS Health — the largest chain drugstore in 2018 by total prescription revenues, according to the Drug Channels Institute — trailed Good Neighbor, Health Mart, Rite Aid, Walgreens and the drugstore average in satisfaction.
CVS operates the second largest mail-order/specialty pharmacy, after Cigna-Express Scripts, with an estimated $38.6 billion in prescription revenues last year. The mail order was just below average in consumer satisfaction, behind Humana, Kaiser Permanente, OptumRx and the category average.
The data from over the 12,000 consumers surveyed also showed they still enjoy visiting physical pharmacies.
“As technology companies promise to change the way Americans address their pharmacy needs, our data suggests that changing such entrenched behavior will be an uphill battle,” Greg Truex, managing director of health intelligence at J.D. Power said in a statement.
However, in this age of Amazon, some of the market’s biggest players are shifting more resources into at-home delivery.
Amazon itself is making a play with its Rx delivery subsidiary PillPack acquired in June last year for $1 billion. Stock of traditional pharmacy retailers like Rite Aid, Walgreens and CVS plummeted following the news and the e-commerce giant has spent the past year or so steadily expanding PillPack’s reach by applying for more state licenses.
Currently, CVS offers prescription drug delivery nationwide as fast as same-day through a variety of payment methods and membership programs. It’s free if you’re a CarePass member, and a flat fee of $7.99 if you’re not.
Expanding upon a successful November trial run, CVS also plans to open 1,500 more HealthHUB retail stores, locations devoting at least one-fifth of floor space to preventive care and wellness offerings.
According to J.D. Power, HealthHUBs business model could be a smart play. Roughly two-fifths of surveyed customers who know about their pharmacy’s health and wellness offerings use them. People who use the services also spend almost 13% more on their order, indicating investments in preventive care could be smart long term decisions for pharmacies.
CVS Health reports already seeing increased traffic and higher margins in its HealthHUB locations across its MinuteClinic, pharmacy and main retail stores.
Good Neighbor Pharmacy and Health Mart are franchisees … they are INDEPENDENT PHARMACIES where pts typically are dealing with the Pharmacist/Owner. Here is a link to find a independent pharmacy by zip code
http://www.ncpanet.org/home/find-your-local-pharmacy
Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »
Has the “illegal fentanyl OD’s” causing a shift in “drug of choice” to be abused ?
DEA warns of national methamphetamine comeback
https://www.abc12.com/content/news/557138522.html
As the opioid epidemic swells in the United States, there’s another deadly drug that’s making a comeback.
“We’re talking super labs,” said former Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Kevin Hartmann. “Super labs that can produce multi hundred kilograms of methamphetamine.”
In 2005, Congress passed the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act which regulated the sale of legal drugs, like Sudafed and cough suppressants, which were used to manufacture meth locally.
It worked for a while. Officials say, it almost eliminated the production of meth in the U.S.
“That’s the good news,” said Hartmann. “The bad news is that these producers of meth ramped up operations in Mexico and now they have these super labs that provide the majority of meth to the United States.”
The drug enforcement administration says meth seizures have increased 255 percent since 2012. Last year, agents in the Omaha Division took more than 1,600 pounds of the synthetic drug off the streets.
Now, Hartmann is calling on Congress to grant officers more authority to intercept cartel communications. Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota believes the solution is to strengthen border security.
“That’s a combination of technology and drones and manpower,” said Thune. “Because one of the best ways to shut that down is to make sure it never gets to South Dakota in the first place.”
According to the DEA, methamphetamine is 71 percent cheaper than it was in 2005.
Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »
New Survey Data Confirm That Opioid Deaths Do Not Correlate With Pain Pill Abuse or Addiction Rates
New Survey Data Confirm That Opioid Deaths Do Not Correlate With Pain Pill Abuse or Addiction Rates
New data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) provide further evidence to support a counterintuitive conclusion: The dramatic increase in deaths involving prescription analgesics since 2000 cannot be explained by a dramatic increase in misuse or addiction rates, because there was no such increase.
Prior NSDUH data showed that rates of past-month “nonmedical use” and past-year “pain reliever use disorder” barely changed from 2002 (when the survey began in its current form) through 2014, even as deaths involving these drugs rose by 175 percent. The survey questions on these topics changed in 2015, so the more recent numbers are not comparable. But we now have four years of data with the new wording, and they tell a similar story.
According to NSDUH, the rate of “prescription pain reliever misuse” fell in 2016 and 2017, even as deaths involving those drugs continued to rise. The rate fell again in 2018, and that year deaths may also have declined, judging from preliminary CDC data. The rate of “pain reliever use disorder,” meanwhile, fell in 2016 and 2017 but stayed the same in 2018.
The lack of correspondence between deaths involving prescription analgesics and illegal consumption or addiction rates suggests that patterns of use changed in a way that made fatal outcomes more likely. If nonmedical users started taking prescription narcotics more frequently, in higher doses, or in more dangerous combinations with other drugs, those shifts would help explain the increase in deaths.
In 2017, just 30 percent of opioid-related deaths involved prescription analgesics, and the records compiled by the CDC indicate that 68 percent of those cases also involved heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, or alcohol. The role of drug mixtures is probably even bigger than those records suggest. In New York City, which has one of the country’s most thorough systems for reporting drug-related deaths, 97 percent of them involve more than one substance.
The evidence does not favor a simple narrative in which more opioid prescriptions led to more abuse and addiction, which in turn led to more deaths. The “opioid crisis,” which seems to be part of a long-term upward trend in drug-related deaths that began in 1979, might more accurately be described as a problem of increasingly reckless polydrug use, a problem that cannot be solved—and may be worsened—by demanding wholesale reductions in pain pill prescriptions.
Filed under: General Problems | Leave a Comment »
Class Action LawSuit
Class Action LawSuit
www.doctorsofcourage.org/class-action-lawsuit/
CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT
Needed: Victims’ stories
A law firm has shown interest in class action for chronic pain patients who have suffered damages as a result of being denied their medications by a chain pharmacy. That would be such places as CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, Rite Aid, Kaiser Permanente (HMO), or mail order chains.
What they need to establish a realistic case are legitimate, verifiable stories of how legitimate patients have been denied their medications without just cause. They also need to know how this action caused damages. There are the worst cases of suicide, unintentional death, heart attacks, loss of job, but there are also damages accepted by the court that would be less drastic, such as inability to go to work, loss of quality of life, stress over being able to provide for the family, PTSD, anxiety, depression, costs of other medications for related conditions, etc.
We want to start with a presentation of 100 cases. To show how widespread this is, I would like to pick 2 from each state. Eventually all cases received would be shared, so please contribute your case, even if your damages were mild. As their interest is piqued, they will be asking for more cases and we want to have an armamentarium to just reach in and pull out.
Do not worry about sending us what happened to you. For the investigation phase, we will redact all names from the report given to the law firm. We will not share your personal information, but we will need to be able to contact you once the case is accepted. We do need your name, location, email address, and phone number for contact.
An example of other people’s horror stories can be found at https://pbmabuses.org/. Feel free to also add your story there.
This is something that all pain patient advocacy groups should advocate for. Please ask them to put this notice on their home page of their website, and post it on every facebook page, twitter account, Instagram that you have access to. Make this go viral.
Send your story to:
lindacheek@doctorsofcourage.org
There will also be a place on DoctorsofCourage.org for you to send your story through a message box.
This has the potential to be bigger than the tobacco law suits, so get on board and let’s hit a homer.
Filed under: General Problems | 5 Comments »
Prosecutors: former DEA agent Chad Scott is a liar; defense says witnesses are tainted
Prosecutors: former DEA agent Chad Scott is a liar; defense says witnesses are tainted
https://www.nola.com/news/courts/article_e0071a16-c28f-11e9-8e43-e30b1d68b458.html
For nearly two decades, Chad Scott helped push criminal cases through federal courtrooms as a decorated field agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, eventually leading a multiagency task force based on the north shore, where he patrolled the heavily traveled drug corridor of Interstate 12.
But for the second time this year, Scott sat Monday at the defense table in a federal courtroom in New Orleans and listened to a special team of prosecutors describe him as an out-of-control liar who leveraged his job as a way to coerce drug dealers to give him what he wanted.
His defense attorneys countered that Scott was an outstanding agent who is being railroaded by resentful drug dealers and convicted cops looking to get a better deal from the feds.
The arguments kicked off Scott’s retrial on seven counts of perjury plus obstruction of justice and falsification of government records. Earlier this year, a jury deadlocked on the charges against Scott, and U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo was forced to declare a mistrial.
U.S. Department of Justice special prosecutor Charles Miracle’s opening presentation Monday sought to build a stronger foundation and narrative than the government did in the first trial.
During his half-hour opening statement, Miracle told the newly empaneled jury of seven men and five women that Scott’s case was about “honesty and integrity” and that Scott had repeatedly lied to get things he wanted.
“These are not minor lies,” Miracle said. “These lies had consequences.”
Miracle told the jury that Scott had betrayed the trust of his employers and the entire criminal justice system.
He acknowledged, in an effort to head off what will be a focus of the defense’s presentation, that the witnesses against Scott are not innocent men: Three of them are admitted drug traffickers who moved scores of kilograms of cocaine and heroin; two others are former drug task force officers who have since pleaded guilty to federal crimes.
“A number of witnesses in this case have criminal backgrounds,” Miracle said, but the evidence they will present “fits together with common sense and logic.”
Specifically, Miracle said, the prosecutors will show that Scott ordered Frederick Brown to buy him a truck like the one Brown himself drove. Brown did so, and Scott picked it up in Houston while there for a water skiing tournament. Days later, Scott turned in the truck at his Metairie DEA office with forms that said Brown had surrendered it in Metairie as part of his role as an informant for Scott. He also told Karl Newman, a task force officer who is slated to testify against Scott, to say they had gotten the truck in Metairie, Miracle said.
The truck was later allocated to Scott to use as his undercover vehicle.
In the perjury counts, Scott is accused of lying on the stand about the relationship between Brown and a trafficker named Jorge Perralta. Scott also faces an obstruction of justice charge for allegedly trying to convince Brown and a man named Edwin Martinez to say that Brown knew Perralta. Brown will testify that he never met Perralta, Miracle said.
Scott’s attorney, Matthew Coman, signaled the defense’s intention to attack the government’s case even more aggressively than it did the first time, spending the first few minutes of his own opening statement scoffing at the government’s witnesses.
Perralta, one of the drug traffickers who is expected to testify, “will admit he supplied kilo after kilo of heroin to this conspiracy that made its way to Hammond, Louisiana,” Coman said. “From Houston to our hometown.”
Despite those admissions, Coman noted, Perralta will walk in and out of the court a free man because he has been granted immunity in return for his testimony against Scott. Similarly, Martinez faced life in prison, Coman said. But because of a deal with prosecutors, he could be released next year.
Newman refused to tell the government what it wanted to hear until prosecutors added new charges to his indictment, Coman said. Then, faced with the possibility of 30 years in prison, Newman caved and agreed to testify as prosecutors wanted, Coman argued.
“This is the government’s case: people that sold drugs and have something to gain,” he argued.
“On the other side of the ledger, Chad Scott is a 20-year veteran of the DEA who put his life on the line on a regular basis” and is innocent, Coman said.
The trial is expected to last about two weeks.
Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »
how many times has the Rx dept staff embarrassed you at the pharmacy counter ?
Isn’t it about time the pts started to embarrass them ? The post linked below… is what I am talking about… this pt’s embarrassment was posted in a local OHIO newspaper
Stark has filed a complaint with the Ohio Board of Pharmacy against Walgreens’ Pharmacist, refusing to fill meds she had taken for EIGHT YEARS
Want to share your embarrassing story with all those on the web ?… I will publish them – minus your personal information..
Tired of a pharmacy telling your that “they are not comfortable” filling your prescription/medication to treat your health condition ? Maybe -you – the pt needs to make them really feel uncomfortable… share your story with me… I will post it… name names… if it is a chain pharmacy…. give me the name of the pharmacist…. give me at least the town they are in…
Let’s see how comfortable they are when their chains start getting BAD PR because of their actions/decisions
Filed under: General Problems | 5 Comments »
Are you ready to go fishing or still just want to “cut bait” ?
I was involved in a interesting conference call tonight… on the call was a person who has contacts with some of the very large law firms. According to contacts within these law firms put it simply how law firms think…. when it comes to taking on a class action law suit… first is MONEY and second is JUSTICE.
It has been stated that all that is needed is abt ONE HUNDRED DENIAL OF CARE HORROR STORIES involving a large healthcare/insurance corporation to peak the interest of these major class action law firms.
There ia a handful of chain pharmacies that control >50% of the community pharmacies
There is three Prescription Benefit Managers (PBM) that control abt 80% of all prescriptions filled
There is a handful of insurance companies that control the majority of health insurance business and if – or not – pts get certain therapies paid for.
Who is ready to TAKE A STAND… share your denial of care horror story… about these entities basically practicing medicine without a license.
Those involved with the conference call came away with the idea of collecting those horror stories – confidentially – until we reached or exceeded that magical ONE HUNDRED NUMBER … Then share these HORROR STORIES with the law firm – while initially redacting the person’s personal information.
OR … do you just wish to continue to call/write your member of Congress ? – THAT GOES NO WHERE
Continue to sign petition that GOES NO WHERE
Whine, Bitch, Moan to each other on hundreds or thousands of Face Book pages… or keep sending out tweets expressing your dissatisfaction of some employee of one of these healthcare entities that really could care less if you are being thrown into cold turkey withdrawal every month for a few days.
OR you could continue to “LIKE” a Face Book or Twitter post BUT NEVER SHARE A POST. A post WILL NEVER GO VIRAL without being SHARED !
You need to decide if you will continue to “cut bait” or ready to GO FISHING ?
Filed under: General Problems | 7 Comments »