Florida Society of Pain Management Providers commends new Pain Clinic regulations / Standards of Care

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Jan 25 2011

The Florida Society of Pain Management Providers (www.Flspmp.org) commends the Florida Board of Medicine (Michael Chizner, M.D., Chair / Larry McPherson, Executive Director) and the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine (Joel Rose, DO, Chair / Anthony Jusevitch, Executive Director) in their issuances of Pain Clinic regulations / Standards of Care. These regulations went into effect on November 8, 2010 for Doctors of Osteopathic medicine (DO's) and will upon expected legislative confirmation go into effect this March for Medical Doctors (MD's).

The pain clinic rules were developed by the Pain Management Clinic Standards of Practice Joint Committee which was comprised of members from both medical boards and chaired by Fred Bearison, MD & Joel Rose, DO. Over a period of fourteen months the joint committee held approximately nine rules workshops which were then followed with four separate rules hearings in front of their respective boards (MD / DO). Over the fourteen months of workshops and hearings it could be estimated that the joint committee and full boards heard hundreds of hours of testimony along with receiving thousands of pages of written submissions.

Paul Sloan, President of the Florida Society of Pain Management Providers (FLSPMP) attended every rules workshop and hearing, presenting testimony and submitting over five hundred pages of submissions in an effort to assist in the rules development. Mr. Sloan adds, "the members and supporting staff of the joint committee undertook a monumental task that most could never comprehend and over a period of fourteen months developed stringent but fair rules that will protect the citizens of Florida," adding, "the members should be applauded by all as this work was done by them on a purely volunteer basis."

Warren Pearson who formerly served as the Florida Department of Health's Chief Prosecutor of Pain Clinics and is currently the Executive Director of the FLSPMP stated that, "these rules now give the Department of Health the tool that was needed to get into these clinics and prosecute those that are causing the problem."

Pearson and Sloan added, "We urge the legislators to affirm the Medical Doctor (MD) rules as their first course of business when the 2011 session convenes as further delays will only allow the problem to continue unchecked, unless they choose to affirm the rules sooner through a special session which we would support as does the Florida Academy of Pain Medicine and the American Academy of Pain Management."

SOURCE Florida Society of Pain Management Providers

Posted in: Medical Condition News | Healthcare News

Tags: Doctor, Hearing, Medicine, Pain, Pain Management

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I commend both boards on this issue

Enrique Segarra says:

April 5, 2013 at 7:42 PM

Now, we need to get the retail pharmacists to close the gap, perhaps by monitoring the practices of some doctors not caring about the health of our Florida citizens and not following the standards of care. In my opinion the legislature should also license some Florida pharmacists or pharmacies if they want to dispense pain management pharmaceutical care to our citizens. This can indeed reduce law enforcement's burden by not having to put off so many little fires that are keeping them so busy. As a pharmacist myself for the past 30+ years and a member of the Florida pharmacy association I have witnessed both ends of the pain management crisis. In the 70's and 80's no one wanted to treat a suffering pain patient for fear that they would be flagged by law enforcement as over prescribers. Cancer and chronic patients were suffering in pain and couldn't get any help. Then, in the 90s, laws were created to take this fear away from doctors. Then the opposite happened, some greedy unethical doctors took advantage of these "relaxed regs" and took off with it to the other extreme. Now, law enforcement has to basically take us back to the 70's and 80's, or "square one". We need to find a way to balance this, somehow, meet in the middle.

Now, giant pharmacy corporations, such as Walgreens and CVS are being threatened with stiff penalties and fines if they don't monitor this problem. I think, they have to be held accountable to some extent and perhaps even start creating new clinical positions to properly train and monitor how their pharmacists provide this type of pharmaceutical care to our Florida citizens, they certainly have the assets to get it done, but threatening then with multimillion dollars in fines is just going to indirectly hurt many innocent patients in the state when no one can get the care they deserve. I have spoken to many pharmacist in my practice area and they just flat out will not stock any narcs in their pharmacies for fear of being targeted by law enforcement, therefore, forcing the honest patients to inundate the ERs everywhere. Many of these patient's will end up losing their jobs because they can no longer work, because they cannot get the medical care they deserve. The worst part is if this trend continues in either direction, tax payers will end up with the burden.These two boards are on the right track and I commend them.

Lets go back to our roots. For 10,000 years there have always been healthcare professionals whose mission was to care for the sick with compassion and law enforcement professionals to keep us all protected from evil. Lets just all work together on this issue and when I say together I mean including all health associations and law enforcement agencies and bring this epidemic to the "middle".

Enrique Segarra, R.Ph., Pharm.D.

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