“The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick and the needy, and the handicapped.” – Hubert Humphrey
passionate pachyderms
Pharmacist Steve steve@steveariens.com 502.938.2414
“We just want everyone on board to have the healthiest kids we can in our community,” one councilman said.
Author: Dennis Ting
Published: 6:31 PM EDT May 25, 2018
Updated: 6:38 PM EDT May 25, 2018
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — Dining out with kids could be getting healthier. At least that’s what several Louisville metro council members hope after they passed an ordinance Thursday evening that will require Louisville restaurants to make sure children have healthy options in the menus.
“Nobody’s trying to play gotcha here,” Councilman Rick Blackwell, D.-District 12, said. “We just want everyone on board to have the healthiest kids we can in our community.”
The ordinance would require children’s meals at restaurants – defined as when several different items are bundled together – include either a whole grain product, a lean protein, a cup of fruits or vegetables.
If a drink is included in the meal, the default drink will now need to be listed on the menu as either water, milk (or a non-dairy alternative), fruit juice combined with water or a drink that has less than 25 calories per 8 ounces and no artificial sweeteners. Customers will still be able to request soda or another sugary drink.
“The hope is that an adult presented with that will more likely than not choose that option,” Blackwell said.
According to Blackwell, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, which passed with a 13-11 vote, the goal is to combat childhood obesity and the other health risks that come with it.
“We are looking for ways to make a dent in that,” he said. “So last night’s vote wasn’t a silver bullet. It wasn’t the one that’s going to make that all turn around, but it’s one thing that will make a difference, we believe.”
But not everyone believes the menu changes will lead to behavioral changes.
“I think that most people when they go into a restaurant have in mind what they’re going to get,” Kentucky Restaurant Association President and CEO Stacy Roof said. “As a parent, I think you know what you’re going to make available.”
Roof said she and other organizations and restaurant owners did talk with council members as they worked on the ordinance to give their opinions. She said while almost everyone can agree promoting childhood health is important, the ordinance could pose challenges for some restaurants.
“What is in print on restaurant websites, restaurant menus, the drive-thru boards that you see or the menu boards in the restaurant and quick-service operations, those will have to be changed,” she said.
Blackwell said the ordinance, if not vetoed by Mayor Fischer, will take effect in 120 days. Restaurants will then have one year after the ordinance begins to get everything in order before fines will be imposed.
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Next week, top executives from the nation’s largest distributors of prescription painkillers will testify before Congress about the role their companies played in the deadliest drug crisis in U.S. history.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that if he were still senator, he would have tough questions and choice words for the company executives.
“This has been a colossal detriment to America, and you have profited enormously by it,” Sessions said he would tell them. “And I’m not shedding any tears if you’re no longer making profits.”
In an interview with The Washington Post, Sessions said “I don’t have sympathy” for the distributors that are accused of flooding communities with powerful prescription painkillers. “They’ve made a bunch of money. Some of them have done it the right way, I know. But at some point, I think it’s fair to say that they were slow to recognize how much damage was being done.”
Sessions’s comments come as questions mount over how much responsibility opioid manufacturers, distributors and others within the supply pipeline bear for the epidemic that kills tens of thousands each year.
In recent months, Sessions has taken an aggressive approach, both with his rhetoric and a string of new initiatives. He said he was affected by the book “Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic,” and the story of Purdue Pharma’s campaign to market OxyContin.
“Have you read ‘Dreamland’?” he asked. “For the first time, you get a glimpse of how it really developed.”
Sessions has proposed limiting the amount of opioids that companies can manufacture each year. He announced that the Drug Enforcement Administration also will share with 48 state attorneys general information from a database that monitors the flow of painkillers from manufacturers to distribution points, with hopes that it will aid their investigations.
The ARCOS database tracks controlled-substance transactions reported by manufacturers and distributors to the DEA. Much of the information is confidential, but Sessions said he would consider making more data available to the public.
He also created a task force to target drug manufacturers and distributors, raising the possibility of filing criminal charges against them if they break the law.
Purdue Pharma, which was fined $634 million for claiming its drug OxyContin was less addictive than other pain medications, declined to comment on Sessions’s remarks.
Cardinal Health said in a statement that it agrees with Sessions’s desire to reduce the number of opioid prescriptions and that the company “cares deeply about the devastation opioid abuse has caused American families and communities and we are at the table to help solve this complex national public health crisis.” Cardinal Health was fined $44 million in 2016 to resolve allegations that it failed to report suspicious orders of narcotics. In 2008, Cardinal paid a $34 million fine to settle similar allegations.
McKesson Corp. said that as a distributor it “does not drive demand or ‘dump pills’ — we fulfill orders placed by DEA-registered pharmacies, which correspond to prescriptions written by DEA-registered doctors.” McKesson agreed to pay $150 million in fines in January to resolve allegations that it failed to report suspicious orders of narcotics. In 2008, the company paid a $13 million fine for similar allegations.
John M. Gray, president and chief executive of the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, a trade group that represents distributors, said: “Distributors have no role in driving demand for pharmaceuticals, including opioids, and do not manufacture, prescribe or dispense medicines.”
A spokeswoman for the group that represents manufacturers said it supports a “wide array of proposals to prevent abuse and addiction.”
Opioid overdoses killed more than 42,000 people in 2016. A study released Tuesday by the National Institute on Drug Abuse said that 45.9 percent of these deaths involved fentanyl, a powerful synthetic painkiller, and that 40.4 percent involved prescription opioids.
The Justice Department filed a “statement of interest” in the lawsuits against drug companies brought by cities, counties and Native American tribes seeking reimbursement for the costs of the drug crisis. States and cities say their budgets are strained from the costs incurred as a result. Jails are over capacity. First-responder budgets are stretched. The number of children in foster care is at a record high.
The judge in the multi-jurisdictional case, Dan Aaron Polster, has said he wants to see a speedy settlement that will help end the opioid crisis. He has scheduled the first trials for March 2019.
The Justice Department argued in a court filing that the nation has deployed “extensive resources” to fight the opioid crisis, which has created a “substantial economic burden” on the federal government. Sessions said that the federal government also should be repaid for the costs it has borne.
“We believe that there have been improprieties in drug distribution,” Sessions told The Post. “We have an interest because the government has paid for a lot of this excess. A lot of this is paid for by Medicare, Medicaid, the [Department of Veterans Affairs]. And so we have an interest financially also.”
In Congress, a House Energy and Commerce Committee oversight panel is investigating whether drug distributors pumped millions of highly addictive pills into West Virginia, which has the nation’s highest rate of overdose deaths. Next Tuesday, current and former drug-company executives are scheduled to testify before the panel and expected to be grilled about why their companies flooded the state’s small communities with pills.
Sessions said that one of “the most significant” steps he has taken has been to create the Justice Department’s Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit, which focuses on investigating and prosecuting health-care fraud related to prescription opioids, including “pill mill” schemes and pharmacies that illegally divert or dispense prescription opioids.
“That has led to lots of investigations all over the country, and it’s pretty stunning, really,” Sessions said. “Sixteen doctors in [the] last takedown prescribed 20 million opioid pills. And one doctor we raided received $1 million in cash at his house. Lots of them have just made huge amounts of money.”
LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) – CVS and Walmart Pharmacies have stopped filling Lafayette Dr. Robert Bigler’s pain pill prescriptions. Patients are left wondering why.
For pharmacies no longer accepting Dr. Robert Bigler’s prescriptions, Brian McIntosh has a question.
“Should I make my next doctor’s appointment with you?” said McIntosh.
McIntosh has been seeing Dr. Bigler for about 14 years.
“I was diagnosed with Lupus. Lupus can cause different problems,” said McIntosh.
Problems requiring pain management and sometimes, opiates. However, McIntosh said Bigler doesn’t give them freely.
“There have been several times where I have requested a little higher dosage and he’s said no, we will work through this another way,” said McIntosh.
That’s why McIntosh was surprised CVS and Walmart decided to stop filling scripts written by Dr. Robert Bigler.
“Why they have picked him out is beyond me,” said McIntosh. “I know of no other doctors that are going through this.”
However, something similar happened to Pain Management Dr. Anthony Mimms in Indianapolis. He ended up suing CVS for defamation. He won a million dollars in trial court but the decision was overturned on May 9. Another trial has been requested.
“He follows the guidelines,” said Beth Carter.
Carter also goes to Dr. Bigler. She’s been denied at Walmart Pharmacy.
“And I asked them why and they said, ‘well we are not subject, we can’t tell you that,'” said Carter.
Telling patients why, could open pharmacies up to another defamation lawsuit. However, McIntosh thinks the public deserves transparency.
“There has to be a reason why they’re doing that so let us know at least what it is, pay me that courtesy,” said McIntosh.
Walmart refused to comment on the matter.
CVS said it has a program in place to identify prescribers who exhibit extreme patterns of prescribing high risk drugs such as pain medications. It said in some cases, following a thorough investigation, CVS may suspend the dispensing of controlled substances they write. However, they won’t confirm specific doctors and the results of those investigations.
McIntosh is currently going to Payless for his prescriptions, Carter is getting hers from Walgreens. However, what if more pharmacies follow suit? Will other local doctors be added to the list?
“I really hope not, that’s going to make a big mess,” said McIntosh.
If getting prescribed pain pills at the pharmacy gets more difficult, some fear patients will turn to the streets instead.
“It’s already happening as a result of what is going on,” said McIntosh. “They can buy it cheaper on the street, the drug is stronger, it’s more potent.”
“I’ve seen people do it and it’s scary. And I don’t want to lose no more friends to that,” said Carter.
Dr. Bigler’s office refused to comment on the matter. According to the Indiana Board of Pharmacy, there are no formal complaints against Dr. Robert Bigler. His license to prescribe is still active.
Krissy Houser is one of many chronic pain patients who are feeling besieged by new government and insurance company policies limiting prescription opioids.
The Bucks County woman was taking high doses of the highly addictive pain medications until her doctor got nervous in fall 2016. Federal officials were looking at his prescribing records, he told her, and she’d need to come down to the much lower dose — about a seventh of what she was taking — that was newly recommended as the ceiling for new pain patients by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Houser cried. She injured her back in a recreational vehicle accident in 2006, when she was in her late 20s. Two surgeries helped, but then she fell before the second surgery had healed. She had to leave her job at Merrill Lynch and go on disability. The opioids limited the pain enough for her to be able to help her mother, walk the dog, and see friends.
Since her doctor began slowly tapering her dose, she has suffered withdrawal symptoms and pain that is constant and intolerable, she said. Houser, who had weight-loss surgery before her accident, has gained 90 pounds since her pain treatment changed. She still has not quite met her doctor’s dosing goal. “I’ve lost friends. I’ve lost everything. I’m a shut-in,” she said.
Her mother now walks the dog. “That’s the hardest part,” she said. “She’s now taking care of me again.”
Houser sees herself as a collateral victim of the war on opioids. Experts say that most people with an opioid addiction today got started on prescription pain pills — either their own or someone else’s. New rules seek to contain the number of leftover pills available for diversion and reduce the number of pain patients who become dependent or suffer serious side effects. But longtime users with chronic pain contend that these rules are hurting law-abiding people. They and some doctors worry that the opioids pendulum, which initially swung too far toward prescribing the pills, has now swung too far toward taking them away.
Situations like Houser’s will likely become more common next January when Medicare starts enforcing its new rules on opioids, which will make it harder, though not impossible, for doctors to prescribe high doses. Medicare, which often leads on insurance coverage policy, is coming later to this issue. But, with its 58.5 million senior and disabled beneficiaries — Houser included — it wields huge influence.
In addition to rules from many private insurers and state governments that make it more of a hassle to prescribe high doses of opioids, doctors are also feeling pressured by law enforcement agencies, which monitor prescribing patterns, patients and their advocates said. Pain specialists say they’re seeing an influx of chronic pain patients who have been dumped by other doctors.
In part due to such restrictions, opioid prescribing has continued to decline from its peak in 2011. Yet U.S. doctors still prescribe more opioids per capita than doctors anywhere else in the world.
Should chronic pain patients be treated differently from people new to opioids?
Some chronic pain patients and experts argue that those who are accustomed to high doses and are doing well on them should be treated differently. Cutting their doses could lead to greater disability, depression, suicide and illicit drug use. Besides, they note, patients often don’t have access to pain specialists or the multimodal pain programs – employing not only medicine but also physical and emotional therapy — that research suggests is most effective.
Sharon Waldrop, vice president of the National Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Association, said most people on long-term, high-dose opioids failed every other option they tried first. The drugs improve their quality of life. “For a certain percentage of people,” she said, “it’s working.”
Courtesy of Kristen Ogden
Louis and Kristen Ogden live in Virginia. He takes high doses of opioids to treat his chronic pain. This photo was taken at her retirement ceremony in 2014.
Kristen Ogden, 65, lives in Virginia with her husband, Louis, 68, who has suffered terrible headaches and widespread pain since childhood. He is taking 28 times the opioids dose Medicare will soon use as a threshold for extra scrutiny. His body does not absorb medications normally, Ogden said. The drugs, she said, make it possible for the two of them to have a social life, and they improve his thinking ability. He says he never feels high. They were traveling to a pain doctor in California for treatment and paying $5,000 a month for the half of his dose that his insurer refused to cover. His doctor says he has faced pressure from the Drug Enforcement Administration, and is retiring.
Ogden worries that they will have “no quality of life” if Louis can’t get high doses of opioids. “I feel very frustrated because my husband has done very well,” she said.
Stefan Kertesz, an addiction expert and physician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Birmingham VA Medical Center, started a petition against Medicare’s initial, and even stricter, opioids proposal. The adopted rules are less onerous, but still require a pharmacist to double-check with any doctor who prescribes more than 90 milligrams of morphine equivalent (MME) a day. (That’s the equivalent of 90 mg of hydrocodone, 60 mg of oxycodone or 20 mg of methadone. A calculator can be found here.) Hospice and cancer patients were excluded from the limits, flagged in 2016 by the CDC as a point above which the risk of dangerous complications and death rose.
But that recommendation was not meant, Kertesz and others said, as a goal for people already taking higher doses.
Kertesz said doctors know very little about what will happen when patients are forced to taper their doses. Many will have prolonged withdrawal symptoms, including depression. He worries they will turn to street drugs or even suicide. Many will need more mental-health support and monitoring.
“We are making large-scale, very aggressive policies in an arena where data is weak,” he said. “I don’t take it as a given that every person can be tapered.”
Curbing dangerous drugs
Supporters of restrictions say that opioids are dangerous, addictive drugs that, at higher doses, raise the risk for serious side effects and death. And, these experts say, there’s little evidence that high-dose opioids are any better than alternatives for chronic pain. The CDC found no studies of long-term use of opioids that compared them with other treatments.
Andrew Kolodny, a physician who is co-director of opioid policy research at Brandeis University, said that 90 MME is an “extremely high, dangerous dose.”
Courtesy of Andrew Kolodny
Andrew Kolodny is co-director of opioid policy research at Brandeis University and executive director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing.
Many doctors – including area geriatricians – say Medicare’s actions will have more impact on its disabled patients than seniors, because older people usually are not on high doses of opioids, which are more dangerous for the elderly. The drugs make them more vulnerable to constipation, falls and mental fogginess, doctors said. At the same time, though, some older patients are also at risk from alternatives such as ibuprofen, which also can have significant side effects.
Kolodny suspects that fatal overdoses in seniors are underreported because their deaths are blamed on other medical conditions.
But he agrees with Kertesz that, during tapering, patients need extra care for both physical and emotional side effects. The drugs can paradoxically make patients feel more pain, plus pain is worsened during withdrawal. Anxiety and a sense of impending doom are also common during tapering. “These patients,” he said, “need a lot of support bringing their doses down.”
Kolodny said opioids should almost never be used for chronic low-back pain, fibromyalgia or chronic headache, but often have been. “What we’re really talking about are the victims of our era of aggressive prescribing,” he said.
In a recent study, Erin Krebs, a researcher at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, compared two groups of patients with serious, chronic back, hip and knee pain. The group not on opioids tried an average of four pain medications, requiring careful trial and error under close medical supervision. Compared with the second group, who took opioids, those who had other therapies scored the same on measures of function, but reported less severe pain and many fewer side effects.
Krebs, though, signed Kertesz’s petition. “We need to make sure we’re doing this right and not creating a whole lot of new, unintended problems for people,” she said.
Courtesy of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
Lewis Nelson is director of medical toxicology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
Lewis Nelson, a medical toxicologist who is chair of emergency medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, was on the panel that developed CDC guidelines. Chronic pain patients who have used opioids for years can overdose, he said, even when their dose stays steady. It can happen when another medication is added that interacts with the opioids. Sleep apnea can also be a factor. Or a patient can get a virus that affects the lungs, leading to dangerously low oxygen levels overnight – and death. “This is very, very common,” he said.
Except for metastatic cancer patients and people who are near death, Nelson takes a hard line. He says even after surgery or a substantial injury, few people need more than five days on opioids. “I don’t think anybody should be on them for chronic pain.”
Courtesy of Kristina Houser
Krissy Houser at Core Creek Park in Newtown, Pa.
Meanwhile, Houser is miserable with pain. She wishes she could afford medical marijuana. She thinks about suicide, but says her Christian faith keeps her from doing it. “There’s only so much a human being can take,” she said.
What insurers are doing
Locally, Independence Blue Cross now requires annual prior authorization for chronic pain patients on opioids, but doesn’t set a dose threshold.
Aetna, the region’s other dominant private insurer, requires prior authorization at 90 MME. It has new programs for patients who take long-term opioids with sedatives, which increase the odds of overdose, as well as for those on high doses or with a history of overdoses. It is urging subscribers to use alternative pain approaches, including acupuncture, physical therapy and chiropractic care.
From a numbers standpoint, the prescription restrictions seem to be working. Opioid prescriptions peaked in 2011 and doses also dropped in 2017, according to a recent report from IQVIA’s Institute for Human Data Science. Doses for 90 MME and up fell by 16 percent last year.
Drug overdoses, fueled largely by illicit opioids, have continued to rise.
Several weeks ago I woke up one morning with a high end of the pain scale pain going down my right leg. Years ago I had a sciatic nerve flare and the pain seem to be very familiar from back then. I had a fair number of opiates on hand … so I started treating the pain with opiates and NSAID’s.. muscle relaxers.. ICE… Heating pad.. topical cream.. “the works”… This was a Monday… The next day I tried to get into to see one of the 6 prescribers in the practice – NO LUCK… so I went to a urgent care in the same complex.. owned by the same hospital corporation. The urgent are doc concurred with my diagnosis and gave me some prednisone and off I went… by Friday… nothing had changed … so I was able to get into see one of the prescribers in the practice – not our normal PCP… and IMO.. the amount of prednisone that the urgent care doc gave me was TOO LOW… which this doc agreed with and called in a prescription for a higher doses and off I go…
A week later, nothing is better… so I was able to get into see my PCP… last appt on Friday… I was going to be out of opiates in a few days. We have been seeing this prescriber for over 20+ yrs… I don’t know if I am a rapid metabolizer or the intensity of the pain was such that if I didn’t take a IR dose of opiates every 2.5 hrs… at the 3 hr point the pain started rapidly going up the scale and even at this opiate dosing the pain was TOLERABLE…
The opiate dose that I was taking was WAY ABOVE the CDC guidelines… but.. our prescriber did not even bat a eye… wrote a prescription for 22 days at that dose level. Unfortunately, our Part D carrier… has this quantity limit of SIX TABLETS/DAY on EACH STRENGTH.. My daily intake was less than the highest strength at 6 tabs per day, but that didn’t make any difference that I needed to take the lowest dose frequently..
I talked to their PA dept.. and they said that they would have to talk to my doc… I pointed out that I had been on that dose for a couple of weeks.. it was FRIDAY and I was his LAST APPT… I also told them that I would be out of opiates before they could reach him on Monday and that I would be in a torturous level of pain and may be thrown into withdrawal… and I mentioned the name of their medical director and that I would start filing complaints against the company and their medical director.. Surprisingly in less than 24 hrs I got a call that it had been approved 🙂
When we had our pharmacy, we sold T.E.N.S. units and I was not all that impressed with them for long term use… body tends to accommodate the electrical stimuli and they tend not to work after a week or two and the electrodes… maybe last 24-48 hrs and are expensive.
The QUELL unit is basically a T.E.N.S. unit and not all that costly $250.00 ( https://www.quellrelief.com/ ) and it has a 30-60 day money back guarantee..
I am finishing off my second week using the Quell unit daily while awake… and immediately on starting using it .. I was able to cut down my opiates… eventually 25%-33% of what I was taking… which I take more during sleep and don’t wear the unit during sleep… but.. Quell … indicates that the unit can be worn 24/7. This unit is suppose to stimulate the body into producing “endorphins” … a natural opiate type compound.
My experience with the Quell unit… does not guarantee that everyone – or anyone else – will experience the same results.. but with the money back guarantee… what do you have to loose ?
A Washington police officer has been charged with possession of a controlled substance and theft after authorities say she stole narcotics from a city’s prescription drug disposal box.
Smaaladen was placed on administrative leave in November.
Police Chief Dan Schoonmaker said the conduct will not be tolerated, but described Smaaladen as an “otherwise exceptional police officer.”
The Poulsbo officer is being charged with felony drug possession after surveillance video allegedly shows her taking narcotics from a box inside the police department.
KIRO 7 has learned this officer has been with the department for decades.
Schoonmker said he was “extremely shocked” to see that video.
And others in the community were surprised as well.
Investigators say the surveillance video shows Smaaladen taking narcotics that were left in this narcotics drop box at the police station.
According to court documents, Smaaladen said she located the keys to the drug depository box in a lock-box within the police department.
A Poulsbo city employee became suspicious in October after watching this surveillance video to check her timesheet.
“I reviewed that video. It certainly looked suspicious to me,” said Schoonmaker. “So the first thing that I did is contact [the] Bremerton police department. We have a really good relationship with our allied agencies.”
Smaaladen was charged on Wednesday with possession of a controlled substance, morphine and third-degree theft.
Any disciplinary action by the police department can only take place after an internal investigation. The criminal investigation must be completed first.
“Since we’ve just begun the internal investigation, we will see what that reveals,” said Schoonmaker.
Investigators believe Smaaladen took the drugs to supplement her legally prescribed medications she used to treat pain from injuries.
Some in the community told KIRO 7 they feel somewhat sympathetic when we told them about this crime.
“She was taking illegal drugs,” Vince Ryan, a Poulsbo native, said. “She obviously shouldn’t have stolen them, but in a way you could say that she was disabled — at least temporarily — by her addiction.”
“At this point, I think, you have to pay for the consequences to your actions,” Marianne Ryan, a Poulsbo native, said.
Imagine that… a person who has pain from injuries – perhaps work related – and being – perhaps – having their pain under treated because of the new CDC guidelines.. and – perhaps – at risk of having to stop working because of uncontrolled pain ?
CLEVELAND, Tenn. — The Drug Enforcement Administration acknowledged it made a mistake when officers raided Spencer Renck’s house on Tuesday morning. The Bradley County Sheriff’s office assisted in the raid, which happened during the search for a murder suspect who was staying at a house next door.
The federal agency says it’s sorry for the mix-up. But, will it pay for any damages?
On Wednesday morning, District Attorney General Scott Crump asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to review the incident to see what went wrong.
“Clearly on property issues, the DEA and/or the Bradley County Sheriff’s department is going to liable for that,” said attorney Bill Speek.
He sees a lot of situations like this unfold.
There was severe property damage inside the Rencks home. Door frames are busted, ceilings dented and clothes are ripped.
The family says agents threw flash bangs while four children slept nearby.
But Speek says it could have been much worse.
“That’s why it’s really appalling that you would break in or you would execute a search warrant at the wrong house,” he said.
“The fear is always that someone is going to get killed.”
Spencer Renck was armed because he thought the SWAT team was an intruder.
“They had their guns drawn at me and I had my gun trying to protect my family,” he said.
“I didn’t know what was going on. I was really close to being killed.”
After 20 minutes, Renck said agents realized the problem and found the real suspect next door.
But who will pay for the damage?
We asked both the DEA’s Louisville Division office and the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office.
The Sheriff’s office would not discuss the mix-up. The DEA would only say they “will continue to work with the family to ensure their wellbeing.”
“The right thing for the DEA is to compensate them for the damage they caused because of their negligence,” Speek said.
“Treat them as fairly as they can and move past this almost tragic situation.”
Speek believes full compensation should be resolved within one year. If not, he anticipates the family will file a lawsuit.
In the statement, the DEA also promised to “look into this matter further and take steps to ensure situations such as this never occur again.”
We will keep you posted on what the TBI finds in its investigation.
Marketing to EAPs with MAT: Why Your Treatment Center Needs to Offer MAT
As of April 2018, about 127 million people were employed on a full-time basis in the United States. Of those, 25 percent are struggling with a mental illness. That means currently more than 31 million Americas are working and dealing with a mental health disorder. And, according to SAMHSA, almost 9 million people in the United States have both a mental health and substance abuse issue.
Despite the ongoing public debate on whether addiction is a disease, the National Institute on Drug Abuse states that addiction is a complicated, chronic disease that affects a person physically, mentally and emotionally. Because of this government classification, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) protects individuals who need to take a leave of absence for substance abuse treatment, as they may be allowed up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave.
However, many working professionals are still going untreated, and each year, more and more of our population is lost to addiction overdose.
The Opioid Epidemic
In the late ‘90s, pharmaceutical companies told health care providers that patients wouldn’t become addicted to opioid pain relievers, causing providers to begin to prescribe them at a greater rate. These prescriptions became commonplace over the last decade, and the widespread use made it clear that these drugs are, in fact, highly addictive.
In 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency, along with a 5-point plan on how to fix this epidemic, which includes:
Improving access to treatment and recovery services
Promoting use of overdose-reversing drugs
Strengthening our understanding of the epidemic through better public health surveillance
Providing support for cutting-edge research on pain and addiction
Advancing better practices for pain management
Enter Medically Assisted Treatment
Medically assisted treatment (MAT) isn’t exactly new. However, the idea can still scare people. Some call it substituting one drug or addiction for another. But, it’s deeper than that.
Many treatment centers practice abstinence-based recovery programming and have had decades of experience and results in treating people with holistic modalities. However, with the recent onslaught of the opioid addictions and subsequent deaths, treatment providers are starting to realize not all addictions can be treated without medical assistance.
Consider this: Each individual and his or her situation are unique. A college student who has been binge drinking for the summer, for example, may not need acute detox in order to overcome his or her substance abuse issue. However, a long-term opioid user who was prescribed the opioids as a pain-management medication is not going to be able to physically detox from the drugs without medically assisted treatment.
The Changing Laws
In 2016, more than 11 million Americans abused opioids that were prescribed to them, and nearly 1 million more used heroin, which is common after the prescribed medications are cut off.
It’s easy to point the finger at the pharmaceutical companies when you look at how the opioid crisis has come about. With an annual death toll of 60 thousand and climbing, the public and the government are both looking at Big Pharma and asking how they could let this happen.
And, their response? Don’t worry, we have a solution: Suboxone.
Is Suboxone The Answer?
Hardly.
Suboxone, buprenorphine and all of their derivatives are highly addictive. But, let’s be honest: Anyone who has been using opioids for any extended period of time isn’t going to want or agree to come off the opioids unless they feel they have a viable solution for their pain.
If drugs like Suboxone and buprenorphine can help Americans get off opioids, it’s a start. But, it’s not that simple. There are patients that have been on opioids for eight to 10 years and now, by law, they are going to be taken off these drugs. That doesn’t mean they can start Suboxone the next day. Getting off opioids is still going to require professional medical detox. It’s still going to require mental health treatment and a transitional plan for ongoing pain management.
How Treatment Centers Can Help
Pain management doctors, physicians and general practitioners all have to consider MAT. If you are a prescribing doctor and your patients are currently on opioids, what happens when you can no longer offer your patients the same opioid treatment regimen for their chronic pain?
Pain management doctors are going to refer clients to treatment centers for detox and medication stabilization, through a residential track only. Insurance companies will cover that. The addiction recovery center will then refer the pain management client back to the doctor so that the patient can continue his or her medication treatment and return back to work.
Note: That is really the key – getting the patient back to work.
Working with EAPs
The best strategy with MAT is really working with Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and creating a reciprocal referral relationship with medical care providers. When a working professional initiates the FMLA with their employer, the EAP helps them get into treatment without risk of losing their job.
Treatment providers who provide an MAT program can tell working professionals, “We can get you back onto a medication that works for you and refer you back to your doctor for a continuation of care,” which is true. And, you can then morally and ethically offer detox and residential care, which are the highest-yielding addiction treatment services anyways.
Marketing EAP for MAT
Look. Marketing isn’t just tactics, methods and channels. It’s knowing the market, developing the right message and getting it to the right people.
It’s clear to us that the next big demand for addiction care is going to come from MAT. By offering MAT and placing a proper EAP program in place and leveraging strategic partnerships with pain management doctors, hospitals, general practitioners and outpatient providers, your treatment center can create a reciprocal referral relationship and help more people get off opioids.
