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medpundit |
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Monday, March 25, 2002Don’t believe the excuses those lawyers are offering up to the press on behalf of their clients. Prescribing medication without seeing a patient is bad medicine, whether that medication is narcotics or Viagra or antibiotics, and those guys damn well know it. Some doctors will do this for patients over the phone, and that's bad practice, too. You need to examine a patient to make an accurate diagnosis and prescribe appropriate treatment. Narcotics are especially dangerous in this situation. Abusers are very adept at manipulation and often can hoodwink their own doctors. It's only after several visits that an abusive use of the pills becomes evident: too many pills used in too little time, overwrought requests for refills, too much anger when questioned about their use or there is a delay in the refill, etc. Often, too, it's the local pharmacies who alert a physician to abuse when they discover a patient is getting the same drug from multiple pharmacies and from multiple physicians. It strains credulity to believe that these guys were doing this from any altruistic motive. Just look at the money they were getting for each prescription. The rates are far above the going rate of an office visit, and for a lot less work. Greed was their only motivation. posted by Sydney on 3/25/2002 06:02:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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