What's Wrong with Contracts for Rx Pain Medicine?

I’ve been wondering that thought for months now. Wondering what people were complaining about regarding these contracts. I heard Mary Vargas speak at the recent American Pain Foundation Summit. She doesn’t like these contracts because contracts are supposed to offer something to both parties and need to be freely given. She sees the contracts offering protection to the doctors, but nothing to the patients. Also, she objects that often times the contracts are used only for people with persistent pain and not with people with cancer and other diagnoses. That may smack of discrimination.

OK. But that hasn’t been my experience. Then, just the other day, I received a contract from a new pain clinic I have been referred to. Holy sh**. Now I get it.

Before even seeing the doctor I am required to have a urine drug screen (are they already stereotyping me as a criminal?). And before I can get a prescription for the same medicine I have been using for years, I must sign their agreement (which is NOTHING like what my primary care physician used). This contract is definitely one-sided and includes:
-- I can not under any circumstances consume alcohol while taking these medicines (I know what affects and does not affect my body)
-- I will receive narcotic Rx only from this one clinic (what if I go to the hospital for totally different issue?)
-- I agree to serum or urine drug screens at the discretion of the clinic (am I a criminal?)
-- I will bring in for inspection purposes at any time, my narcotics for a pill count (again, am I a criminal)
-- I will personally pick up my Rx every 30 days and be evaluated (every month?)
-- I understand that medication adjustments and management will not be done when I am scheduled for a procedure (so if I am already there, you can’t take the extra 2 minutes to write a prescription? I have to come another time and pay more money?)

This is nothing like the contract I signed with my primary care physician when I began taking prescription pain medicines several years ago. The contract described what I was going to do (use one pharmacy, tell all doctors all my medicines, etc) and what my doctor was going to do (keep evaluating my health on the medications and researching alternatives if available and workable, etc.). I was never put through random drug testing or urine screening or pill counts.

Having questioned the agreement, it still has to be signed. For me, prescription pain medications help me live with my chronic pain. So even if I feel like everyone else thinks I’m a criminal and drug addict, I know the truth. Until perceptions, laws and treatments are changed, I’ll have to join in and play the game – for my health.

Mary, I get it now. I’m with you!