Furious!

[forgotmylogin]

15. This is pretty much right. My mom had spinal stenosis and was on oxy.

I was the one who got to manage her pain meds and her anger when I couldn't get them - that's another story.

But I had all kinds of incidents where insurance wanted "proof" that she hadn't magically healed from her degenerative spinal condition somehow between monthly pain appointments and didn't need the opioid medication anymore. They said she should have surgery but consulting specialist said she only had a 50/50 chance of it working and it could possibly get worse due to her age and lack of activity (she wasn't going to survive any sort of physical rehab) so she opted not to have the surgery.

So many things could go wrong. If she went into the ER for another reason she would often ask for an extra refill of her oxy. They'd write her a week prescription, and the insurance would consider that was "what the doctors had approved for the month" so it was a slog making dozens of calls to get her reapproved.

I was on good terms with the pharmacy and they totally explained this was the DEA trying to curb misuse with efforts that were both draconian and understandable on the paperwork level.