Alabama Workers' Comp Blawg

  • 30
  • Dec
  • 2013

Alabama Enacts New Pain Management Laws

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that Alabama was among the top twenty (20) states nationally in number of drug overdose deaths each year. In an effort to combat this problem, the Alabama legislature recently passed several new laws to regulate pain management clinics and impose stiffer penalties upon persons who doctor shop to illegally obtain prescription pain killers.

The Alabama Pain Management Act requires that all physicians who provide pain management services must now register with the Board of Medical Examiners by January 1, 2014. The Act defines pain management services as those medical services that involve the prescription of controlled substances in order to treat chronic non-malignant pain. The registration requirement pertains to any physician or clinic that advertises or holds themselves out to be a provider of pain management services. Additionally, the Act requires that all pain management clinics appoint a medical director, who must have an unrestricted Alabama Medical License and must meet certain training criteria. Each clinic’s medical director must also register with the Alabama Department of Public Health’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.

Another related new law provides that physicians can now allow their staff members to access the Prescription Drug Database to verify patients’ prescription history. Previously, only licensed physicians could access the database. The new law also allows Medicaid to access the database to check the controlled substance prescription history of patients who are enrolled in Medicaid. 

Finally, another new law provides for stiffer penalties for those convicted of doctor shopping. The law provides that it shall be unlawful for any person to deceptively obtain a controlled substance from a physician by intentionally and knowingly withholding information from the physician that the person has obtained a prescription for the same controlled substance or another controlled substance of similar use from a different physician. Under the new law, doctor shopping is a Class A Misdemeanor upon the first offense, and a Class C Felony after four convictions.

My Two Cents:

It remains to be seen what, if any, impact these new laws will have on employers and injured employees involved in workers’ compensation claims. The new laws should make it easier for doctors to identify claimants who are doctor shopping, diverting, or abusing drugs. However, it is also forseeable that the new requirement that pain clinics appoint a medical director may effectively close the doors of the smaller pain clinics, thus decreasing the number of options available. In any event, hopefully the new laws will help carry out their intended effect of decreasing the ever-growing prescription drug abuse problem in the state.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This article was written by Charley M. Drummond, Esq. of Fish Nelson, LLC. Fish Nelson is a law firm located in Birmingham, Alabama dedicated to representing employers, self-insured employers, and insurance carriers in workers’ compensation cases and related liability matters. Drummond and his firm are members of The National Workers’ Compensation Defense Network (NWCDN). The NWCDN is a national and Canadian network of reputable law firms organized to provide employers and insurers access to the highest quality representation in workers’ compensation and related employer liability fields. If you have questions about this article or Alabama workers’ compensation issues in general, please feel free to contact the author at cdrummond@fishnelson.com or (205) 332-3414.

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