Author: jonathanm1978
Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:28 am
This really depends on your doctor. Only you know the attitude he has, whether he can be understanding and forgiving, or whether he’s a hard-ass and doesn’t play around or allow his patients to have any variation. I know my doctor, and just because he’s a suboxone doctor, I can’t take what I know about mine and say that stands true for your doctor. Each doctor is different…but they are also human. Some of them are in it for the money..and they aren’t really interested in the patient’s well being, but are more interested in their wallet. Sad to say, but just like drug dealers on the street, you have those professional drug dealers who went to med school and now are professional dealers. They have no qualms about throwing their patients around or giving them the boot, not thinking about what suffering the patient will go through.
I have the perfect opportunity right now to chance doctors. My doctor is out-of-network on my wife’s insurance, and it would be a great help for me to get into a doctor who accepts my insurance. The doctor I currently see, they file my office visit as a specialist doctor visit, plus out-of-network, so there’s MUCH more cost involved. I have managed to go as far as making a phone call to ONE other doctor…and this doc that I called last week is IN-NETWORK..plus, instead of filing the visit on my insurance as a specialist, he files it as a regular office visit…which means that I would ONLY pay the $25 co-pay that BCBS requires of me. I would be SO much better off, financially, to go see the doc that I called. When I first talked to the receptionist, she told me he wasn’t taking new patients…that I could be put on a waiting list…but soon as I mentioned having insurance and that being my only reason for changing, because I was already ON suboxone, and had been for a while, she changed and started talking about me coming in…being an "already inducted" patient and having experience already with suboxone means less work for them, less worry for them, and less medical necessity on my part..basically, I’m less responsibility for a doctor to bring in because I’m already a patient and already taking the medication in a responsible manner. He wouldn’t have to go through the ropes of teaching me how to NOT be an addict, and getting me out of that mind-set that I need opiates to survive. All-around, it makes sense to me that a doctor would be more willing to see an exisiting suboxone patient than to bring in a new patient and start from scratch with them…
Did I schedule an appointment when she asked if I wanted to come in? NO. I did NOT. WHY?..doesn’t make sense does it. Do I WANT to pay more for a doctor that is out-of-network and files it differently, as a specialist visit instead of a regular office visit? No, I would prefer NOT to do that…
But the thing is, I KNOW my current doctor. I’ve been seeing him for nearly 2 years. September of 2012 will be 2 years that I’ve been with my current doctor..and I have this "comfort" zone with him. He’s a good guy, we mostly just laugh and talk when I come to see him…yes it’s costly, but I like the guy and he’s someone that I’m comfortable with..and I don’t like disrupting my life in the manner that I would have to do in order to change doctors. Not to mention that my current doctor sees me once every 3 months, this new doctor that I called told me that I would have to come in monthly…
so 4 visits to the doctor per year, or 12 visits a year. Both doctors are about an hour away (both are opposite directions though)…but about the same in mileage…
Sure, I could try and weigh it out and get a precise cost "analysis" of the pros and cons..but it’s not that big of a deal. The main thing, I know my doctor..and I know what he’s like.
The first office-setting doctor that I saw..things were a little different. So far, this is my 3rd Suboxone doctor in the 4 years that I’ve been on Suboxone. I started with the Dr at the methadone clinic..only saw him a couple of months…then a doctor in an office-type setting…saw him for nearly a year..and now, my current doctor..going on 2 years.
If you’ve seen your doctor enough, then you know their attitude, and the type of person they are. You know what they’ll go along with, and what they’ll be strict with.
My neighbor..who also went to my doctor for a little while, got thrown out of my dr’s practice. My neighbor was "dismissed" as a patient of his…so my neighbor was forced to find another dr. Why? Because he tested positive for suboxone and wasn’t supposed to have anything in his system except opiates. The doctor I see is considered a neurological / fibromyalgia doctor…and also is known as a Pain Clinic. So that’s the Specialist part…but he doesn’t deal with people taking meds they aren’t prescribed, at all. I’ve never had ANY problem with a urine test ….except for when I first started at the doctor I was with my first year…I had ONE test that came back with opiates. I had drank some cough syrup, knowing it had opiate in it, but figured I’d be OK. I even explained this to the guy…
This dude made me come see him for 7 weeks straight, $110 each visit. Up until that point, I had no problem…but that’s when I started searching and found my current doctor. Once I got in with him, I haven’t done ANYTHING dumb, or anything even remotely questionable. NO mess-ups at all..and I won’t either. I’m not risking it..there is NO amount of hardship or emotional issue that could make me.
I guess this is the difference in a long-term suboxone patient, and one who’s not-so-into the suboxone treatment yet. You can still remember the highs…you can distinctly remember what it’s like..how it feels. I, being so long on it, can’t. Whether I’ve mentally blocked it out, or just don’t want to …I don’t remember what it was like to be high. I know that I liked it, and it was something I enjoyed back then, but, I can’t sit and remember. Once you’ve been clean for as long as I have, and others here, maybe you too will be at that point. One day you’ll wake up, and getting high will seem like a VERY distant memory. When I think about the past, whether it’s because of my age or whatever..it seems like YEARS AND YEARS ago…but I’m only 33. The peak of my opiate problem was in 2006/2007..so it hasn’t really been that long…but to me, it seems like that stuff happened SO long ago. I hope everyone will one day get to that point, where they don’t remember why they enjoyed the high like they did..and they ask themselves the questions that I ask myself…like "what was SO good about it…"…
And I answer that question with this: Nothing. There was NOTHING good about it…and there’s nothing good enough to gain from it, or to feel from it that would make me want to try it again…
Even drinking seems like something I did over a decade ago…
Maybe it’s how the suboxone works in the brain..but I can’t remember much of anything when it comes to the feeling of being high on opiates.