Opinon: New Drug Regulations Undermine Mental Health

The new prescription drug regulations are so confusing, I’m even starting to question my own mental health. Things are changing too quickly. But, there’s nobody I trust more for the inside “dope” than my old psychiatrist and friend, Dr. Abnorm Drowze. I called his office on the way to my new psychiatrist. His secretary explained that he was “addressing a possible systems over-ride.” She said Dr. Drowze seemed fixated on that lately. Anyway…

I’m going to a new psychiatrist because Dr. Drowze cut me back to ten minutes three times weekly from the fifteen minute, five-day “Work-Week Special”, for which I got a personal discount off the top because we’re friends. But, that’s not sufficient time to consider all the new medication therapies available, let alone sample their side effects. There are some really potent ones that haven’t even been approved yet — they’re supposed to be that good.

Dr. Drowze told me confidentially he could get me some (because we’re friends), but I’d have to pay him directly, cash-in-hand. “Times are tough right now.” he said. Already, he’s been forced to make us pre-pay with credit-cards on the way in. Because of that, he needs a security guard, too. I feel a little sorry for Dr. Drowze.

I miss his personally subsidized “stay-overs” too; when he wasn’t so busy as now. He’d slip us free samples, but you’d have to take them all before you left the building. That really helped; plus, he’d give you a five percent discount on all new prescriptions offered at the stay-overs, and the PDR study option was billed at half-price. He first offered the steep discounts right after his divorce. “Why not just give it all away?” Dr. Drowze opined. But, he’s more focused now. 

The cash register is out front like a movie theater, so that you pay before you go in. The ‘cashier’ (armed guard) requires “full, absolute physical surrender” of two credit-cards and a “federally approved” picture I.D.; not just a utility bill or something with your name on it like it used to be.

The new heavy-handed, uber-legislation now requires docs to “actually visually see a patient-consumer and hand-tender a fully authorized prescription.” Plus, the doc’s signature must be “legible”.

I’m suspicious of government controls, and used to be you could print your own prescriptions on-line, fill them out yourself, and scan them into the system on the way in when you pay, which makes more sense. That way you could  pick them up on the way out instead of having to wait in line. But those days are gone.

Dr. Drowze now requires vouchers for payment verification, and also how many prescriptions you’re up to. He’s still fighting the powers that be to maintain his “Twofer-Tuesdays” and “Threefer-Thursdays” health-promotionals requiring the stated minimums on those days. It’s cash up front, which is okay, because that program offered real savings. But now, you can’t even get ten percent off all prescriptions over five even after you’ve been taking more than five for at least a year. 

Some old-timers still tender their own hand-written forms to the pharmacy and just stand there expecting to have their prescriptions filled like before. It’s not like that anymore, though. Dr. Drowze says Big Brother is watching, and we may soon have our fingerprints scanned in addition to having our wallets confiscated at the door. 

He said new technologies enable consumers to over-ride the system with their Me-Phones. I remembered what his secretary said, but I was just joking when I remarked that he might be a little paranoid. I thought of the reverse irony in it. “It happens!” he shot back testily. I dropped it because it made his face turn red, but I still think it’s funny. I did feel kind of bad, though, that Dr. Drowze was so stressed. He’s afraid business will sink under the weight of the new regulations.

He said people had been skipping out without paying, too: known as “heal and haul”, in which insurance-poor consumers with high co-pays simply snatch their prescriptions and run out the door. That they even got past security seems to confirm Dr. Drowze’s suspicions of a systems over-ride.

Coincidentally, his collection office seems unable to track them, even with its automated tie-in to law-enforcement. “Someone on the inside could be over-riding that.” Dr. Drowze said. I heard that people were passing fake I.D.’s, and that was the real reason for the new requirements, but who knows?

Dr. Drowze says systems over-riding forces restrictions on the basic freedoms we all once took for granted. He told me off the record that the DSM V should consider a “Welcher’s Syndrome.” I would say to them: think what you are doing to the rest of us, you welchers!

Dr. Drowze says the way things are going, he may cover the box-office with this new, lead-lined Nauga-Board which shields against electronic signals and has a portal that opens when you key in your fingerprints. I imagined a fist coming out and punching my nose, like in the movies.

A camera would scan a quick facial-recognition, you submit your wallet, the portal shuts, you get your wallet back on the way out, after your information is processed into the new NCIC computer system, like a police cruiser.

I told him I had a dummy wallet if it came to that, and we both laughed. Then, he looked around cautiously and told me not to leave more cash in it than the visit costs — you won’t get it back! He cautioned about not trying to use monopoly money, either. The old system was allowing employees to cash the fake bills out by “a systems over-ride,” and take kick-backs from patients who “were out to get him”, and he’s having a new one installed.

If that isn’t enough, his full-timers, who’ve now been cut back to thirty hours a week, have organized and are demanding drive-through windows. I mean, you’re in a hurry to get to the drugstore so you can get your prescriptions and talk about dosage and side-effects later — instead of waiting in line feeling all antsy and stuff.

Some sessions have over fifty people, and if your name is Zibowitz, you’ve got a long wait. “It’s like when we stood in bread lines in the old country!” Zibowits complained. Dr. Drowze is considering a “privatized pre-verification form that is quite legal and could be filled out at home.”

He’s now wearing an ace bandage on his wrist, sometimes even a metal support-frame. I’ve talked to full-timers who say it’s hard on him. The post-therapy session is now run by an assistant so Dr. Drowze can get a jump-start on writing prescriptions and get consumers through more efficiently. I heard that one time he finished early and had his assistant pass them out before the bell rang.

“When that bell rang,” a seasoned full-timer piped: “we just automatically got in line, prescriptions already in hand — yet still waiting for them!” He chuckled warmly at the fond memory: “When we realized what had happened, it was like a jail-break! All we wanted to do was get to the drugstore and get home.” He said they were bemused in spite of themselves when Dr. Drowze explained that it was “only a bit of harmless conditioning.” The old fellow hooted about how they’d laughed at their own foolishness! “I’ll tell you something, though:” he said confidently, “Dr. Drowze is one helluva psychiatrist.”

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