Pain Management Clinics

Pain Management Clinics

During the past year the State of Florida has joined the national trend to bring pain management clinics under regulation. This is the result of abuse of prescription medications and the rapid rise of availability of “street drugs” of many kinds. indiscriminate prescription writing and multiple doctor shopping has exacerbated the problem, resulting in the passage last year by Gov. Charlie Crist of new legislation, which will be fully implemented by year-end 2010.

Governor Crist signed the prescription drug monitoring bill June 18, 2009, one of FADAA’s priority bills. SB 462 establishes the criteria for the creation of a basic prescription drug monitoring system. It also calls for the registration of pain clinics. Below is a summary of the bill.

Title: Prescription Drug Monitoring Bill No. SB 462

Provisions: The bill requires the Department of Health (DOH), by Dec. 1, 2010, to design and establish a comprehensive electronic system to monitor the prescribing and dispensing of certain controlled substances. The bill requires prescribers and dispensers of certain controlled substances to report specified information to the DOH for inclusion in the system. The bill takes effect July 1, 2009.
The bill provides exemptions (listed below) from the data reporting requirements for controlled substances that are administered, dispensed, or ordered in specified settings or for specified categories of patients. Data regarding the dispensing of each controlled substance must be submitted to the DOH, by a procedure and in a format established by the DOH, and must include minimum information specified in the bill. Any person who knowingly fails to report the dispensing of a controlled substance commits a first-degree misdemeanor.

The Office of Drug Control, in coordination with the DOH, is authorized to establish a direct-support organization to provide assistance, funding, and promotional support for activities authorized for the prescription drug validation program. The bill creates a 10-member Program Implementation and Oversight Task Force within the Executive Office of the Governor to monitor the implementation and safeguarding of the electronic system established for the prescription drug validation program.

The bill provides immunity from liability for prescribers and dispensers who in good faith receive and use information from the prescription drug validation program. A person may not recover damages against a prescriber or dispenser authorized to access information under the drug validation program for accessing or failing to access such information.

The bill requires each physician who practices in a privately owned pain-management facility that primarily engages in the treatment of pain by prescribing narcotic medications to register the facility with the DOH, unless it is a Florida-licensed hospital, ambulatory surgical center, or mobile surgical facility.

The bill creates exceptions to the reporting requirements for controlled substances that are:
• Administered by a health care practitioner directly to a patient if the amount of the
controlled substance is adequate to treat the patient during that particular session.
• Dispensed by a pharmacist or administered by a health care practitioner to a patient or
resident receiving care as an admitted patient or resident at a hospital, nursing home, hospice, or intermediate care facility for the developmentally disabled which is licensed in Florida
• Administered to a person in the health care system of the Department of Corrections
• Administered in the emergency room of a licensed hospital; Administered by a health care practitioner to a person under the age of 16
• Dispensed by a pharmacist or a dispensing practitioner as a one-time, 72-hour emergency resupply of a controlled substance to a patient.

For additional information please contact:

Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association
2868 Mahan Drive, Suite 1, Tallahassee, FL 32308
Phone (850) 878-2196 • Fax (850) 878-6584
www.fadaa.org

What Are Some Choices for Pain Management Clinics
to Continue Medication Management?

Pain management has been a loop hole in many individual practices/clinics/emergency care facilities in allowing access to a wide variety of addictive medicaines. The prescription drug monitoring bill is supported by the Federal Government in assisting States in brining under control not only unrestricted prescription writing , but individuals and organizations involved in drug abuse or trafficing in controlled substances.

Unfortunately, many dedicated pain management entities are caught up in the regulatory changes and will soon be under pinpoint scrutiny as in the case of Florida by the Department of Health. Practices that are going to continue pain management can be in compliance with the new state statuets and expand treatment services to assist those patients with litigimate pain and those that have become addicted to opiate drugs, benzodiazepines and various psychotropic medications.

The advances in medicine for treating addiction has expanded materially in the last ten years as treatment protocols developed from the COMBINE Study clinical trials, have led to much high success rates and the development of medically managed dual diagnosis treatment services as utilized by the providers recommended on this web site.

The choices for pain management clinics are clear:

1). Discontinue pain management activities associated with practice activities and not be under Department of Health reporting requirements.
2). Eliminate patients wo are gaming the system to obtain prescriptions for their own
addiction or for illegal distribution activities.
3). Institute electronic prescription procedures, monitoring of such prescriptions and the
interaction of those medications that foster dangerous patterns of abuse.
4). Expand treatment services to include new medications that can bring addiction under
control or eliminate abuse alltogether.
5). Incorporate new medications on the very near horizon for treatment of pain into existing practices or treatment plans.
6). Refer those patients that need assistance that have been addicted or dependent on drugs that are destroying the quality of life of those that can no longer control the amount or combination of drugs being consumed.
7). Consider expanding treatment to include recovery or treatment services as an additional patient service.

Pain management treatment services is at a crossroad as a result of new legislation, advances in medication management and the new treatment protocols presently available. Practices interested in expanding treatment services can contact Solaria Kovak toll free at (877) 311-6764.