I know that when people come into a situation for the first time, they accept things as they are, and can’t imagine something different. So most people in pain management consider monthly visits to the doctor as normal. But just give this some thought.

Think about:

1. How many visits to your pain management doctor do you have to make every month? What does each visit cost? Convert that to a yearly cost.
2. How many miles is it to your doctor’s office? How much gas does that take?  How much does that cost? Convert that to a yearly cost.
3. How many times do you have to go to your pharmacy for your pain meds? How much does the prescription cost?  Do you have to pay for it monthly or even more often than that?
4. How many miles is it to your pharmacy? How much gas does that take?  How much does that cost? How many other visits per month do you have to make to your pharmacy for other prescriptions?
5. If you work, how often do you have to miss work to go to the doctor for pain management? How much of your vacation or sick time do you have to use every year for this?  How much money does that set you back?

Now imagine this:

Your pain meds are treated like every other medication you are on. Chronic pain is handled by your doctor like chronic high blood pressure on a blood pressure med. You can possibly get by, once you are controlled, with seeing your doctor at a yearly physical and get all of your prescriptions written to last a year.  Looking back at the above, what would this save you in time, gas, office visit costs, and medication costs per year?  If you are able, share the costs you would save with us as a comment, if this could be the future.

Now, why can’t this be your future?  It can be. There is no reason for the current pain management control. So why aren’t other advocates getting on board getting the CSA repealed?  Why do they chase rabbits like CDC guidelines?  Why do pain patients chase behind them and not get behind what will end the overmanagement of pain? Removing the CDC guidelines will not change a single one of the costs above. Only repealing the CSA will do that.

But what other great benefits will occur once this is done?  Think about the savings to all of the insurances that are paying dearly for your office visits, testing, urinary drug screens, etc.  Think of the tax dollar savings as the insurance costs come down.

Now imagine the possible future that you and your loved ones could have…