The rules are getting very strict regarding controlled substance prescribing. If you live in Florida, effective this Friday, you can’t get a refill without seeing the doctor every three months, signed contracts will be mandatory and a written treatment plan required for every patient given a CS. OP will have to see her doc every three months, not just once a year if she lives in the Sunshine State.
Personally I think it was irresponsible for her doctor to give her 12 months of ambien without a check up. She was opening herself up for potential litigation especially due to the side effects reported with this type of medication.
A lot of states don’t currently have this, actually.
These docs who don’t require contracts are what we call in the industry “pill mill docs”. A real pain management MD knows that you don’t take Vicodin from him for your back pain, and then the other vicodin from your dentist for your tooth pain, and then the other vicodin from the ER for your kidney pain…etc.etc…
To be clear- I meant buying extra sleeping tablets on the black market, not OTC in a pharmacy.
People will actually admit this sometimes. One patient, for example, came to see me because his dealer was on holiday and he couldn’t get his usual Diazepam- could I give him extra so he didn’t withdraw while the dealer was away?
We also have to watch for:
Left my script on the bus.
Meds were in my pocket when I put my clothes in the washing machine.
Dog ate my tablets/script.
My husband thought they were painkillers and took them for a headache and now I don’t have any.
I’m going on holiday for 6 weeks to Spain and need extra (without being able to supply airline tickets).
I have patients on daily dispense from a named pharmacy, with weekly GP visits, alerts on their record at the GP out of hours system and every A&E in Northern Ireland that they must NOT get opiates or benzos unless life threatening emergency situation.
NHS scripts and named GPs allow easy correlation of patients with medication. GPs, GP out of hours and A&Es are the ONLY places you can get meds on the NHS. Hospital consultants request medication, but the script is done by the GP and entered onto the GP system, and you can only be registered with one GP at a time. The right hand pretty much always know what the left hand is doing.
We have systems in place for people we know have problems, and the only way you ensure someone doesn’t have a problem is to see them every so often.
I just want to set this straight - I live in VA and have never gotten 12 months of any prescription medication. The GP referenced in the OP only gave me two months at a time. I had one visit for the throat problem/thyroid exam in midwinter and then two separate consultations with her during late winter/early spring that were for the sleep problems and the Ambien. During the first consultation there was no mention of labwork. She said I would have to come back periodically to continue getting the meds, a directive I understood and agreed to. During my second Ambien consult she said she’d consider giving me another couple of months on the Ambien if I came in to her for the GYN exam at the same time. It seemed to me at the time like this was a new condition that she was suddenly imposing, hence my OP here.
[QUOTE=JoeyP]
Also, you have to remember, just because YOU are taking Ambien correctly, doesn’t mean other people are. And because other people aren’t, you still have to abide by the rules. It’s like saying to a cop when you get pulled over “I know the speed limit is 55, but I can drive safely at 70, really.” I’m sure you can, but we all have to obey the rules.
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Whoa, whoa, whoa! Did you not see my earlier post where I said “I guess I still didn’t appreciate just how controlled Ambien is - gosh, all it does is make me juuust drowsy enough to snooze! But nobody gets to be a special case in this matter.”?
I have been trying not to come across like an entitled airhead in this thread. Sigh.
I get physicals every year whether required by insurance/work or not. I understand that many medications can’t be prescribed without labwork. I also never said this doctor was a bad person. I just didn’t see what the GYN exam had to do with the continued refills for Ambien, seeing as neither the GP nor the other sleep doctor I saw before had made any request of that nature in the past when writing an Ambien scrip. I should have asked the GP for more details during the second Ambien consult. Hindsight 20/20.
Sorry if I didn’t make the above clear enough in my previous posts. Again, I do have some knowledge of how doctors and scrips work. (BTW Jackmannii, your post cracked me up! Opioids are definitely not for this elf ).