I need a pain medicine doctor in Birmingham Alabama that takes Medicaid, How can I find one?
Since 1996, I have had 3 lumbar back surgeries (laminectomy diskectomy fusions rods & screws etc) and I have had one neck surgery (anterior cervical fusion.) I developed fibromyalgia right after my neck surgery. The back surgeries never stopped the back pain and even made it worse and eventually the doctors said that I had that failed back surgery syndrome. My back & neck & legs hurt all the time. I found a good pain management doctor and he put me on Duragesic Patches and Percocet for breakthrough pain. He moved me quickly up to the 100 size patch. I still have pain but it is bearable and I can function enough to almost be a normal person. My good doctor moved to Chicago and my next doctor continued my treatment. Now that doctor is moving to New York. He has already quit seeing anyone that has Medicaid. Now I need to find a new doctor but the problem is that I only have Alabama Medicaid. There is no such thing as a Medicaid directory of doctors. Medicaid workers will only say that I should "call around" to find a doctor. It isn't that simple if you need a doctor to continue Duragesic patches, especially at 100 strength!
I have called all the pain clinics in the Birmingham area and none take Medicaid. I am on SSI and cannot afford to pay cash. If I could find a doctor that would take cash, and if I could afford him, that doctor would have to be willing to fill out Medicaid Prior Authorization and Pharmacy overrides-Therapeutic duplication forms for each prescription he would write every month, every drug. Without that paperwork Medicaid will not pay for the medicine. The doctor would have to be willing to go that extra mile. Medicaid forms and Medicaid rules are sometimes overwhelming. (Most non-Medicaid doctors will not fill out those forms!) All the doctors that do take Medicaid only do epidurals and blocks and do not write prescriptions for pain medicine. I don't know how to find a doctor that takes Medicaid and would continue to prescribe the Duragesic Patches 100 and the Percocet that I have been taking for years. I don't want to go abruptly off my medicine either. Without the medicine I am useless & worthless and spend all day-every day- in bed and in tears. I don't want my life to return to that. Please help me find a doctor that will keep me on my current medication and that takes Alabama Medicaid. I have called over 60 doctors (Primary care, neurology, neurosurgeons, pain clinics that only do epidurals, orthopedic surgeons, physical rehab medicine & family practice doctors) and no one will do medication management.
Also, as a Medicaid patient I only have 14 doctor visits per year. I cannot afford to randomly see doctors to see what they will do or not do. I only have 10 doctor visits left this calendar year. I have ignored some other important medical problems so I can keep my doctor visits free so I can search for a pain management doctor. How can I call around and ask if the doctor prescribes the Duragesic Patches in 100 strength without sounding like a drug addict? (I definitely am not a drug addict!!) Just last week I wasted a visit on a doctor that wouldn't do an epidural and wouldn't continue my pain medicine. He basically said that I should seek a pain managment doctor, but he didn't know of any that take Medicaid! He said he doesn't prescribe narcotics and only does epidurals... and my rods and screws were in the way so he couldn't do a block on me either.
Please help me figure out how to find a doctor that will continue my medication and will take Alabama Medicaid. My primary care physican will not help me even though I have been a patient of his for three years. He refuses to write prescriptions for any narcotics. I always thought pain relief was the major thing for doctors, but it seems that if you are poor the doctors don't care if you suffer. It seems all doctors in this area think that if a person is on Medicaid they are either selling their drugs or using them to get high. I am not selling my drugs or using them to get high. I am an honest person not doing anything illegal. All I want is another doctor to continue what the other doctor has started. I cannot help that my doctors keep moving out of the area.
Most non-Medicaid doctors in this area only take people with insurance (but not Medicaid) and will not take "self-pay" people! And the non-Medicaid doctors that do take self-pay want between $290 and $490 in cash in advance just to make an appointment for a first visit. Maybe there is a compassionate pain management doctor out there someplace that will take payments instead of so much cash at one time. And maybe that doctor could get me into one of those drug company free medication programs instead of his having to fill out all those Medicaid forms (Medicaid won't pay without the paperwork!) But since I do have insurance, I doubt that a doctor could get me into a free medicine program unless they deliberately lie on the free medicine program forms. Once UAB (University of Alabama Birmingham) Kirklin Clinic social workers lied on the forms to get me free Nexium because Medicaid does not approve of Nexium no matter what forms you fill out and Nexium was the only medicine helping my reflux. I didn't approve of their lying on those forms, but they did all the lying, not me. I did get the Nexium that I so badly needed, sent to my home for a year without any problems. (UAB has a pain clinic but they have changed their policy so that now they do not prescribe any narcotics and they only do epidurals, blocks, injections. They did say that they could recommend/advise on using narcotics in a letter to a primary care doctor but they just couldn't write the prescriptions. How weird! If my primary care doctor would only do that everything would be fine and I wouldn't have to beg for help from strangers)
I hope this makes some sense. The main question is " How can I find a doctor that takes Alabama Medicaid and will continue my pain medicine, especially the Duragesic patch 100, when there is no directory of Medicaid doctors and not every doctor will prescribe such high amount of Duragesic patch strength?? The label "Pain Management" is decieving because here, in Alabama, most pain management doctors only do epidurals/blocks and they do not write prescriptions. So, How can I find a doctor that takes Alabama Medicaid and will continue my pain medicine? How do you ask the receptionist when she answers the phone? I can't waste appointments, I only have 10 left until January 2009. So, "How do I find a doctor takes Alabama Medicaid and will continue my pain management?
Sorry to hear of all of your painful conditions...I can relate to quite a few of them so my heart goes out to you. I have extended family in Mobile, Alabama (I live on the Gulf Coast of MS.) and my Uncle sees a Pain Management doctor in Baldwin County...I don't know the doctor's name though =( You could call around in that area and ask if they take medicaid, etc. My Uncle is a Vietnam Vet and he's on Social Security and Disability benefits...He lives on a VERY fixed income and he is also on Medicaid...I'm not sure if the place he goes to accepts Medicaid but it's worth a shot to at least call around in that area and ask. I'm sure they must accept it or he couldn't affort to go. Good Luck with everything and may your pain ease up some dear.
Keep your chin up 
I hope this helps somewhat. Much Love & Peace to you, Sincerely, L.
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Have you asked your current doctor to refer you to another medicaid physician? Usually they know who will or won't take patients on medicaid. It's all I have to and it's really bad to think the doctors can't ignore how they get paid. It's always about the money.
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your helth care ins should have a list of doctors who take your insurance. pain management doctors are a joke. they think everyone is a junkie. doctors start you on pain meds then cut you off and leave you hanging. they dont care about anything but the paycheck. its a disgrace. i am in chronic pain every day and have been on strong oxycontin and morphine for a decade. my doctor was recentley sued and cut me off my meds i need so badley. ive been reduced to vicodin and now he wants to take me off them too. as if a miracle happened and my body rejuvinated itself. stay away from pain management doctors. they dont help. they will do costly tests and expensive nerve blocks but wont give you any real pain meds. what do they think they make that medication for anyway? i guess all the abuse and illegal activity from the scumbags who sell them make it hard on us innocent people. good luck.
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I work in the health care and insurance industry (pre-cert coordinator) and my best guess would be to call Medicaid and ask for a referral to anethesiologists that participate. Good luck!
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Sorry, previous answer was not helpful. You see, though I am in Bham, I do insurance for state of OK, which has great physician guides....
I would try Matthew Berke, a physiatrist (physical medicine) at St Vincent's East. I think he takes Medicaid patients... he has treated me in the past and is very good. I hope this is more helpful than my last answer. I am not sure of his narcotics policy; I hate that people genuinely in pain have to suffer because of the suspicions cast by prescription drug abusers...
Matthew Berke, M.D.
Department Physiatry Section Physiatry Expertise Physiatry Office address 48 Medical Park East Drive, Suite 255 City, State, and Zip code Birmingham, AL 35235 Phone number 205-838-3090 Fax number 205-838-3345- Report Abuse
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Have you found a Dr. in B'ham? My daughter has been a pain patient for ten years. She had seen a Dr. in Ga. for years but cannot travel that far anymore. If you have had any success please share. She is on Medicare and does have a Rx plan.
Three ruptured, torn disc and fibro.
Thank you
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I am also living in Alabama and on Medicaid so I completely understand your predicament and how the limited amount of doctor visits we're allowed per year can make managing our care extremely difficult. In truth I have no idea how Alabama gets away with this since it's not the case in other states I can assure you, I know for a fact since I'm not originally from Alabama and moved here AFTER I became disabled. Now hopefully this information I'm about to give will find it's way to you and be of at least a little help.
Firstly if you're on the patient first program your PCP, or primary care physician is the one who has to refer you to a pain specialist. You can't cold call them yourself because they will automatically assume that you are drug seeking. There are very few pain management doctors in this state who do take medicaid but I know that there are 2 of them in the city of Decatur. I see one of them myself and it only took 4 years for my PCP to bother reading my medical history that I brought with me when I moved here so that they finally realized that the pain I kept complaining about was NOT in my head. They have in fact consistently ignored a number of medical problems I have and I seem to be in some major trouble now as I've already used all of my allocated appointments for this year only to have my PCP discover this past week that I'm most likely suffering from Kidney failure now, and that they somehow expect me to pay for this care out of my pocket knowing full well that I'm living on SSI. In your case there may be something more you can do.. I did a bit of reading today into the whole medicaid system trying to find out how to go about getting more doctor visits approved by medicaid because THERE IS ACTUALLY A WAY TO DO THAT, but I was unable to find that information listed anywhere.. Because they don't want anyone to know they have that option. Anyway with your condition being as bad as it is, it's very possible that you may be able to qualify for some of the wavers.. This means that your PCP doctor would have to say that you qualify for Home health services such as like someone in a nursing home might get, but it also covers doctor visits as well.. Like they remove the 14 visit rule or something, at least that's my understanding of it anyway. The main problem that I've seen here is that most doctors don't take their patients seriously. I've gone to the local ER complaining of sever abdominal pain only to have them assume I was drug seeking and send me home again.. I needed surgery and at the time when I went to the ER asking for help I was actually septic with my uterus rotting away inside of me.. We also have problems with ER's that do not have the proper equipment to treat general type Emergency cases such as broken limbs. Again, I went to the ER, this time with a broken leg and ankle and they slapped a splint on, gave me nothing for pain or swelling and sent me home without any crutches or anything.. I'm not sure how they expected me to get out of the car once I got home, or how I was supposed to get around until i could be seen by an orthopedic on my own several days later because it happened on a Friday early in the afternoon and everyone here closes early on Fridays. The quality of care in Alabama is terrible for anyone who doesn't have decent coverage and i hate to be the one to inform them but yeah, that does constitute discrimination which is illegal by Federal laws for patient care. It's called the Patient's bill of rights and is by law required to be posted in all American ER's but I've noticed that it's not posted here, nor in at least one ER in Decatur. At any rate the PCP is the doctor who is responsible for making sure you get the care you need from a pain specialist and since yours is clearly NOT doing his/her job you can take that up with the medicaid agency and you could also think about calling a civil rights attorney and discussing the fact that your rights are being denied, and that your care is being denied. I wish you good luck, but I'm in the same boat as you here and I'm trying to find a way through this all myself as well..
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