I got a email from a friend of mine that lives in one of the northern states and is a “Florida snow bird” 3-5 months a year.. and has done the same cycle for the last 10 + yrs. This is a 70 something post-polio gentleman. He has been seeing the same northern pain doc during the spring/summer months and a FL pain doc for the “snow bird months”… The FL doc has been seeing him and writing him his pain meds for the past 5 yrs.
This FL pain doc told this snow bird that there was a new law in FL that requires all pain docs to only see/treat FL residents.
My suggestion to my friend was the same as to anyone that gets that infamous phrase “that’s a new law”… just get the person telling you that to show you a copy of the law and/or the statue number so that you can look it up on the web… If they can’t/won’t do either… the LAW doesn’t exist..
This particular gentleman, has owned his condo for some twenty years and rents it out during the “hot summer/spring season” and him and his wife use it during the winter months.. So they pay local property tax, have a local land line and a local electric bill. I suggested to my friend that he take his US Passport, copies of those bills and go to the local driver’s license bureau and get a FL resident ID… which looks like a driver’s license but it clearly marked it is for ID use only.
He will appear to be a FL resident…
Here is what my friend found out from the doc’s office staff…. …..it seems the good doctor was doing a bit of bullshitting about the new law. No new law, just his way of limiting his patients to residents. His receptionist finally came clean about the dirty Doctor.
Apparently this pain doc revoked his Hippocratic Oath and took the Hypocritical Oath ?
Filed under: General Problems
I have an interesting story which correlates with the above referenced issue. I had a stemi heart attack in September of this year (2015) and resulted in a angioplasty with stint placement. Post operative treatment required 4 additional stints to be placed in November. I live alone in Florida and I could not afford any in-home assistance since I live on my SSDI check so I chose to have the additional procedures performed in a hospital near my daughter’s home in Georgia. I am now recovering from a 4 hour angioplasty and multiple stint placement and will need to be here for follow ups and any additional treatment which may be needed for a few months. I cannot fill my prescriptions in Georgia due to the lies perpetuated by many pharmacists that insist there is a law requiring any C2 prescription be filled in the state of permanent residence. However, I cannot drive to Florida every month for several months to obtain my prescriptions. My pain management doctor has treated me for almost 6 years and knows that my medical conditions are completely legitimate and has no problem writing my prescriptions and sending them to me until I can get back to Florida. However, I cannot find any pharmacy willing to fill my doctor’s prescriptions in Georgia so I am now driving to Florida every month to get my prescriptions filled. To exacerbate the problem I cannot just cross the state line into Florida and visit the closest pharmacy near the state line since they all tell me I have to fill my prescriptions in the same county as my doctor practices. It is incredibly painful to travel 650 miles each way just to fill my prescriptions and especially after having extensive and complicated heart procedures performed. The pharmacist in cases such as mine should be willing to consider the circumstances and make exceptions to the rules (especially when the law permits the exceptions) to oblige patients that have had medical procedures recently that change their overall medical condition. It is very difficult for me to fathom that pharmacists, who take an oath not to bring about any intentional harm to a patient, would refuse to fill prescriptions for patients that have undergone recent medical procedures, when those procedures cause the patient to remain in another geographic location for an extended period. This also applies to pharmacists that refuse to fill pain patients prescriptions for an acute condition brought on by emergency treatment while maintaining that the patient’s current pain program is sufficient or “to much” to add additional medications to treat the acute condition. How can a pharmacist make this distinction without truly crossing the line into the arena of practicing medicine which is reserved for physicians and other medical professionals? Every chronic pain patient should consider their options while traveling to other states. In the event of an accident resulting in emergency treatment how would you make arrangements for filling your prescriptions if your emergency doctors refused to continue your current course of treatment because they felt you were being overmedicated and you could not physically return to your home state to fill your prescriptions? This could possibly become a life threatening problem if your new injuries weakened your medical condition enough that withdrawals from your medications could cause extreme stress resulting in possible heart failure or other complications. I believe these types of situations have strong merit for possible legal actions.
This is no surprise because when the pill mills were in full swing their parking lots were full of out of state plates and that became a red flag for the DEA to see a bunch of Kentucky license plates na Florida pain management doctors parking lot. So they were just trying to dismiss him applying a one-size-fits-all guideline that says don’t treat anybody with an out of state identification. It is not law it is something the DEA considers a red flag and this gentleman had fallen victim to it but as usual your advice was found and once he has that precious Florida ID he should have no problems getting his meds during the winter. Some doctors offices go as far to say as if you don’t come every month for pain medication you must not need it therefore I will not treat you. This is going to be devastating for snowbirds.
Thanks for that. I live in the Sunshine state and almost every time I go for my monthly slap in the face the pharmacist tells me something new.1)Must live in same county where doctor resides(lie) 2)Cant get more than 120 pills per month(Lie). Roxicodone and Dialaudid is no longer allowed to be sold in florida(lie) just a few.
Steve thanks again great site!