privacy laws and doctors

[bluesubaru]

so assume a person whom is a friend of mine did a suboxone detox program (voluntary) and then went to a pain management doctor and was seeing this pain doctor (legit pain issues) for several months, everything going well...

...could the holy roller doctor at the treatment center cause problems for this person happily existing, seeing a pain doctor and would this individual have any legal recourse in preventing this said doctor from causing problems with new pain doctor?

[Dances with Smack]

so assume a person whom is a friend of mine did a suboxone detox program (voluntary) and then went to a pain management doctor and was seeing this pain doctor (legit pain issues) for several months, everything going well...

...could the holy roller doctor at the treatment center cause problems for this person happily existing, seeing a pain doctor and would this individual have any legal recourse in preventing this said doctor from causing problems with new pain doctor?

In this hypothetical scenario, it would be likely that the PM doc would find out about the subs before he agrees to see this 'person' who went to sub detox. It is standard practice (around these parts, anyways) for the doc to get ALL prescription records before the initial visit...just to see if you're on the level about what you've been taking, and who all has prescribed drugs to you.

So, if the 'subs' doc decided to drop a dime on this dude after a few months of treatment...the PM doc would probably be offended...'how dare you imply that I didn't know about THAT'...

That's the way I see it going down...

...but hell, I could be wrong.

[Suboxstitute]

Welll - it depends. My sub doc happens to be in the same large university health system/HMO as all my other docs.

I specially declined to sign a release for them to exhange info with my primary doc - not that she was still writing scipts for opiates, but because I wanted to be the to tell her.

So, later, I go in for an unrelated complaint. The nurse starts reading my med list from the computer, and the first one was "suboxone" (the second one was an old hydro script, and the nurse didn't think anything of it, since she wasn't familar with sub at all. )

I lost it there for a second, and said "I specially did NOT sign a release for Dr. Sub to talk to Dr. Primary Care. How do you have this information" ...... Well, I learned that any and all scripts written by ANYONE in the system are entered in the record, so there went myprivacy and I had to tell my primary care doc the whole thing/ she was cool about it, said she was glad I was getting help and then flagged my chart "NO OPIATES EVER"

hELPFUL TIP: I use a completely different pharm for subs, AND only the subs, and everything else is at a different pharm. So if a pain doctor or anyone asked me for a complete pharmacy record, I'd offer up Pharmacty "B" - that list contains contains only what I'd want a PM to see, whatever than means for you.

Also helps if I ever need pain meds (just had roxicet after major oral surgery/surgeon NOT in the same network) - btw the pain meds did not do a thing for me even after stopping bupe for five days prior - even on the TENTH day of no bupe (and I'm on 4-6mg per day) .....they didn't help much w/ the terrible pain I was in and certainly didn't get me high, even though I tried 4-5 at a time, which used to work!

The Lonnnnnnng half life is all I can say about bupe. It strikes again!

But how would holy-roller sub doc even know SWIM was seeing a PM doc, unless they are in the same HMO/health network OR the sub is on your pharmacy records?? May be too late, but anything you woul not want a PM doc, or any doc for that matter pick a doc a) from a different "system" and ALSO get your subs from a separate pharnacy? The sub doctor still has to have your permission to release info to your PM doc - at least that is how it worked for me. It was the darn script that got me "called out" not the doctors talking.