A Hello and some random thoughts.

First, I'd like to say hello to anyone from OMM who runs across my blog. I'm glad to be a part of Da Family and I look forward to chatting, hanging out, and playing various games. That said, if you're at my blog, don't be shocked if you see completely oddball, random stuff. I tend to blog about anything and everything, depending on how the mood so strikes.

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Random thoughts time... There's a new article over on MSNBC about painkiller use being on the rise and the article cites three reasons for the increase:
1. The average age of the population is rising;
2. Drug companies have vastly increased marketing over the last decade;
3. A change in philosophy about pain management.

In my opinion, they missed reason number 4: Doctors, usually spurred on by health insurance plans and companies, are increasingly viewing patients as dollar signs rather than patients. With health insurance companies covering less per year, Doctors have to see more patients each year to make the same average amount they made the year before. Don't get me wrong, that's no justification because Doctors are still, in my opinion, overpaid (in some cases), but Doctors are rapidly pushing out patients to see as many as they can see per day. My former general practitioner, under my last HMO, spent an average of 7 to 10 minutes with each patient and worked 6 hours a day, not including lunch, four days a week. Let's do the math on that. That's between 8 and 10 patients per hour, between 48 to 60 patients per day, and between 192 and 240 patients per week. Since it was a GP who worked with HMO patients, let's assume everyone he saw had a flat $25 co-pay (we won't discuss insurance payments, that's a different rant), and that's between $4,800 and $6,000, a week, in copayments alone.

So when someone goes into a Doctor's office, like my general practitioner, gets their precious 7 to 10 minutes of medical time and complains of pain, the quickest, most "cost-efficient" thing for the Doctor to do is pen out a scrip for any one of a number of various opiate painkillers and follow it with the cliche of taking them and calling the Doctor again if they don't work. For example, I went in twice with lower back pain to my Doctor. I was hoping for a referral to a back specialist or a chiropractor, and even asked for such a referral. I got neither. Instead, both times, I got prescriptions for Hydrocodone (Vicodin) or Oxycodone (Percocet) and Skelaxin, a muscle relaxant. I didn't fill either. Instead I took ibuprofen and dealt with it until the muscles I had pulled repaired themselves. Likewise, my wife suffers from gout - a genetic downfall from her family - and what did her doctor prescribe? One drug, the name escapes me at the moment, to combat the build up of ureic acid and - gasp - Vicodin.

Painkiller use is on the rise because people want to believe in a pill that can cure them of all their ailments, Doctors are glad to oblige because it benefits their bottom line and health insurance companies don't complain because it's cheaper for them. Maybe I'm bucking the trend, but, personally, I cannot stand taking a pill unless it's proven that I absolutely need it.