Hi Cindy, I currently live in Florida and have been here for almost 5 years. If your not moving here for a job or school and thinking of coming here simply for pain management, Dont! This has fast become one if not the most difficult state to obtain a controlled substance. If you do it will virtually be one of the hardest and frustrating thing you may ever do.
Due to the pill mills and exotic pain management clinics,which I may add no longer exist for the most part,Florida has had to simply stop altogether any type of controlled substance prescribing or filling with the exception of only few Drs and very few pharmices. Most Drug stores even the chains no longer order or stock any scheduled II or above controlled substance unless you are already a long term patient of theirs and only for the amounts you have been currently taking so that any increase can be difficult to get them to agree to order and then having to wait if they until they get it.
If you look at the yellow pages 2 years ago in the town I live you will find 26 :pain clinics or drs listed" The new phone book just came out for the same town and the listings for the same is 2 and one of those is a huge spine institute in Orlando some 60 miles away. I do not live in a small area and this is a coastal town with huge tourism.
I am treated by my Neuro which took me 7 months to get an appointment and he had to have all past medical history as well as new scans on everything that is pain causing for me. He was the easiest part of all this, I still had to redo physical therapy,had several injections,and I had to have documented records showing that my previous DR of 9 yrs and had passed away,had tried many,many, other meds ,short term as well as long term before he would script
the methadone which I have been on close to 11 yrs.
The pharmacy is another ball game, you must have a valid Florida drivers lic,or state ID,as well as one other ID,insurance,medicaid,food stamp card,whatever it must be from this state of issue. I have to fill only during my Drs regular office hours,generally 9-5 and only 3 days a week since he is out of the office on Fridays and in surgery all day weds. I have to give them at least 24 hrs to fill it since they fax a form to the dr office asking what my dx codes are,other meds they are using and any other modalities off treatment for these dx.The RPH can refuse to fill any script
at his discreation and they refuse alot, I see them turn down most and always if you are not their former customer. They refuse to fill for certain Drs and clinics, a black list if you may. You have to live in the town your filing the script
in as well and they prefer you fil it to the chain store closest to where you live and will send you to that one.
This all seems a bit harsh and it is,I get so angry some months and my Dr does as well but the addicts and abusers and the so called Drs that were making millions here and I mean millions all tax free since none of those places accepted insurance or medicare,medicaid,cash only in hand for all tests,scans,and office visits,and many had their own "in house pharmacy" and forced you to fill at those,charging ppl $4-6 a pill,imagine now just the cost of getting the meds?
The part that made this all worth while was the fact that those very meds were being taken across state lines and sold for $30-$40 a pill.
Kids were dying,it became an epidemic,they couldnt get the same high out of taking the roxi's anymore so they started injecting and the death rate grew not just from overdosing but the infections and septicemia from staph or Mrsa using dirty needles,cotton fever,you name it,state after state seeing more and more deaths. Something had to change and change it did.
The Fl lawmakers and the DEA along with the police and Legit Drs and RPHs got together and kept coming up with new laws,regulations and better control but the diverters were smarter and they kept coming up with ways around all of it The so called clinics sold their pts Fl leases,they had out of state agencies mail certified mail to an address here that was a mailing drop as they have actual addresses not p.o's like the post office,they met ppl here and paid them to use their address,hooked up phones and cable for free for folks here so they had utility bills in their names and a local address. See now thats smart and no one gave them that much credit.
To get an ID or even your DL here you must prove you have lived here for the past 60 days and you must have every legal document that has changed your name since the day you were born,your birth cert and it has to be state sealed only, your SS card, 2 bills going to the address as well as a lease and 2 months of canceled checks or money order stub showing you actually pay rent at that address. All marraige lic,divorce decrees,death certs,whatever legal document that it took when you changed your name. It also costs $40 just for a state ID.
So most of the clinics are closed now and alot of the Drs are without a lic to practice,lots of out of state ppl in jail here and all the way up across TN,GA,KY,VA,OH, for transporting narcotics across state lines as many of those that came here spent days going from one clinic to another and obtaining several script
s before heading back up north. Many many have lost children,brothers,sisters,friends,to the Roxi epidemic.
I try very hard to remember all of this when it gets so frustrating every month and I cant believe after 10 yrs of PM I have to jump these hoops and follow their seemingly ridiculous rules,the reason why.
Sorry for the length folks but thought it important that everyone understands that this had to stop and what got this state to this point. I wanted everyone to know that it wasnt just addicts,abusers,and dealers,the so called Drs and RPHs that cooperated and
opened these clinics,took the money and wrote the script
s,cheated all of us legit pain patients and the really really wonderful Drs left here trying to keep doing what they always have done, treat folks like me with CP and real issues against all the odds.