When Your Pain Management Doctor Fires You

There are a number of reasons that a pain management doctor fires patients. And it may or may not be the patient’s fault. For example, you may have an accident out of town that required immediate medical treatment. If that treatment involved narcotics it could negate the program you’re enrolled in. Or perhaps your medications are stolen and you choose not to file a report with the local authorities.

The most common reason that a doctor will fire a patient is because of a patient cheating on their medications. That cheating is when a patient is seeing multiple doctors and obtaining pain medications from each one. Regardless of why your pain management doctor decides to fire you, if you are still suffering from chronic pain, your focus should be finding a new doctor. Here we offer some tips on locating a new doctor and advice on how to keep this from happening again. 

Your Medical Records: You have the legal right to these and need to request them. This may take some time and a lot of constant persistence, especially when the separation isn’t amicable.  These records are a must for your new doctor so they know the history of your case, what medications, therapy, and treatments you’ve had already and what the results were. 

A Comprehensive Center: For your new pain management doctor, try to find one that works in or through a comprehensive center. This type of facility will have an on-site surgery center and will have other services like chiropractic therapy, physical therapy, psychological therapy and more. The objective of this facility is minimizing your medications by using alternative ways to manage your pain.

Be Honest: Start off with your new doctor by being totally honest about your pain, the medications you’ve been on and the treatments you’ve had in the past. Today, doctors are scrutinized more than ever before by the government and insurance companies. As such, most of them have little to no patience with their patients not being completely honest with them.

Avoid Illicit Drug Use:  Even medical marijuana may hinder a new pain management doctor taking you as a patient. The best approach is not to use any type of illicit drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy, heroin or marijuana. This is even more so if any of this was a contribution to why your last doctor fired you.

Health Insurance: If you have health insurance, use it. Not using your insurance with one doctor and using it for another can send up red flags that signal drug abuse behavior. Always use your health insurance.

Be Flexible: When it comes to your pain medications and treatments, be flexible and open minded. Even if your new pain management doctor prescribes a medication, therapy or treatment that you have done   before, don’t be overly insistent about not using them again. Unless you had severe reverse reactions, be open-minded and willing to try what your new doctor prescribes and recommends.

Be Respectful: Always be nice and respectful to your doctor and the staff at all times. This includes phone calls and in person. It can be challenging to work with pain management patients due to each one’s complexities and condition. There are issues you can’t help, but being outright rude is never called for and will never get you anywhere expect ignored.

Your Appointments: If you can’t make an appointment, use the 24-hour notice and let the office now. Always show up on time, if not a few minutes early. Yes, that may mean you’ll have to wait for a bit, but keep in mind, the patient the doctor is with prior to your appointment is in pain too.