Death Panels – Weary Wretch

I received a 7 page double sided letter from CMT. Care Management Technologies, which sounds real official. It is part of Missouri Department of Social Services that monitors drug claims, diagnoses and ER visits. It is also part of Missouri Medicaid Audit and Compliance Unit (MMAC, read Death Panel). Probably a whole lot more, but I’ll come back to that.

The purpose of the letter was to bring to my attention that a patient I saw and gave narcotic medication (opioid narcotic, gasp) to who had also received narcotic prescriptions from 5 other doctors. Of course 2 of the others were hospitalists that had taken care of the patient while he was in the hospital.

I had given the patient one hydrocodone tablet while we were waiting for lab results in the ED. No other medication was given by me and no scripts were given by me.

In contrast, he received 334 tablets from the 4 other physicians over a 3 month time frame. That sounds like a lot, but it is 25% less than the maximum recommended dose over 98 days.

And, the pain the patient was being treated for was metastatic prostate cancer. Prostate cancer metastasizes to bone and is the most excruciating cancer pain known. There is no cure and treatment options include estrogen hormone supplement and castration to lessen testosterone which stimulates the prostate cancer to grow. Otherwise the only thing modern medicine has to offer is relief of pain.

So, you must be wondering why I am going on about all this trivial and complex issue. If you remember, we have suffered a few years of Obama Care and the rationing of health care that was predicted to result. Here is evidence that the pundits were right to predict that the “Death Panels” were coming. And, they are here. Actually, they’ve been here for a lot longer, they are just more functional since Obama.

And last week, President Trump signed the “Omnibus Budget Act” leaving Obama Care intact. And, President Trump vowed to stop all the opioid abuse, like my giving this patient one pain pill in the emergency department.

I have been writing about the pending doom of this opioid hysteria for a couple of years. Again will I stress;

There is no opioid crisis, there is only opioid hysteria.

There is a crisis of poor law enforcement, poor government regulations, poor prescribing habits and poor management of psychiatric health issues in America.

There is no opioid crisis.

Venting from your grumpy Uncle/Brother Dave.

Weary