The Need for Anti-Trust and OIG Investigation of Physician Health Programs—Sunshine is the Best Disinfectant!

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mllangan1's avatarDisrupted Physician

She likes a rigged game, you know what I mean?”
— R.P. Murphy in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Unknown-3An article published in the March 17, 2014 newsletter Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Weeklyentitled “Physician group urges focus on spiritual and psychosocial” describes a group of doctors emphasizing “that for all addictions, the psychosocial and spiritual interventions, including 12-step interventions must be included in the treatment process.”   “According to founding board member Dr. Ken Thompson, M.D., “to not do so falls short of practicing good addiction medicine.”
With a “significant percentage” in 12-step recovery themselves, “they have formed group called “Like-Minded Docs.”  This group now has close to 300 physicians, “many of whom are medical directors of top treatment programs and also members of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM).”

ADAW March 17 2014

Screen Shot 2014-03-15 at 7.38.33 PM

Dr. Thompson is  the Medical Director of Caron treatment center in Pennsylvania. The…

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Please sign petition for state audit of Massachusetts physician health program (PHP), Physician Health Services, Inc. (PHS)–Evidence of top-down corruption

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Screen Shot 2015-08-29 at 2.37.54 PMTo sign the petition please click here.

Why this is important

State Physician Health Programs (PHPs) were originally developed by competent and caring physicians to help colleagues who developed problems with addiction or substance abuse.

As an alternative to disciplinary action by state Medical Boards they provided a safe haven for sick doctors while also protecting the public from impaired physicians.This image as a humanitarian agency with virtuous organizational purpose has created an absence of the need to guard.   Any system can be subverted, but as self-governing organizations with no meaningful transparency, oversight, regulation or accountability these organizations were particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

State PHPs have been gradually taken over by the Federation of State Physician Health Programs (FSPHP). The FSPHP is an offshoot of  the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), the self-proclaimed “voice of addiction medicine.”

A “self-designated” medical specialty, American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM) “board certification” is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS).

Through a torrent of propaganda and misinformation, however, combined with strategic and successful lobbying efforts they have gained tremendous sway in the field of addiction medicine. Advancing the 12-step rehab drug testing agenda they have modified and monopolized the field. By cozying up to regulatory boards and politicians they have altered the rules, statutes, and regulations to provide immunity, impunity, and confidentiality. All of this was done without difficulty or any meaningful opposition. They have swayed legal opinion and successfully tinkered with the system to amend rules and policies.

Many consider the ASAM and FSPHP to be corporate front groups, organizations whose agendas match those of corporate interests but who claim no formal relationship. In this case the agenda is 12-step rehabilitation industry and the drug testing industry. Over the past 10 years the ASAM has grown to over 3000 physicians. Within this group there is a subset of recovery fundamentalists who have populated the PHPs. Many have also become medical directors of the rehabilitation facilities to which they refer. By removing dissenting physician who do not agree with the groupthink they have successfully taken over the State PHP system. The evidentiary standard is low. They encourage confidential referral from colleagues and provide immunity to those who refer. If the PHP believes a physician “could benefit” form their services there is no choice. The FSPHP political apparatus exerts a monopoly of force. It selects who will be monitored and dictates every aspect of the evaluation and monitoring process. Conflicts of interest abound.

Control has replaced conduct and ideology has trumped science and reason. It is a system that fosters corruption and impunity. There have been reports of gross misconduct and breaches of standards of care, ethical violations, and civil rights violations. Basic human rights violations and criminal activity has been reported.

In Massachusetts caring and competent physicians such as J. Wesley Boyd and John R. Knight were removed from the State PHP, Physician Health Services, Inc. (PHS). In an article written for the Journal of Addiction Medicine in 2012 they address some of these concerns and suggest the “broader medical community begin to reassess PHPs as a whole.” They recommend independent oversight, transparency, national standards, periodic auditing, and an appeals process. They state:

“Because PHP practices are unknown to most physicians before becoming a client of the PHP, many PHPs operate outside the scrutiny of the medical community at large. Physicians referred to PHPs are often compromised to some degree, have very little power, and are therefore, not in a position to voice what might be legitimate objections to PHP’s practices.”

The FSPHP has introduced junk science such as Ethyl Glucuronide, Ethyl Sulfate, and Phosphatidylethanol as long term alcohol biomarkers with no evidence base. They did this by getting them approved as “Laboratory Developed Tests” (LDTs) to bypass FDA scrutiny. There is no evidence-based support for these tests but the FSPHP convinced Regulatory Agencies (medical boards) that they were valid tests. This “medical sanctification” of these bogus tests resulted in other monitoring programs utilizing them and, unregulated by the FDA, the labs doing the tests could claim they were accurate and reliable with no repercussion. they are claiming the PHP programs as the “new paradigm in addiction treatment” claiming an 80% success rate. They have also created a myth that medical mistakes are the result of a hidden cadre of drug addicted doctors and are behind the recent call to randomly drug test all physicians. Of course who will run such a program? They will. They also want to expand to other organizations such as the DOT.

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that the marked suicide rate in physicians is because of this.

The propaganda and misinformation is based on a study that is misleading and full of methodological flaws.

In “Ethical and Managerial Considerations Regarding State Physician Health Programs,” published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine in 2012, John Knight, M.D. and J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., PhD recommend ”the broader medical community begin to reassess PHP’s as a whole” and that “consideration be given toward the implementation of independent ethical oversight and establish and appeals process for PHP clients who feel they are being treated unfairly.”

They also recommend the relationship of PHP’s between the evaluation and treatment centers and licensing boards be transparent and that national organizations review PHP practices and recommend national standards “that can be debated by all physicians, not just those who work within PHPs.”

In evaluating a physician this group is not gathering data to form a hypothesis but making data fit a hypothesis that arrived well before the physician did. And this may be part of the explanation for the recent marked increase in physician suicide. With guilt assumed from the start, no due process, no appeal, and no way out physicians are being bullied, demoralized, and dehumanized to the point of hopelessness. This needs to end now.

Medicine is predicated on competence, good-faith, and integrity. Medical ethics necessitates beneficence, respect, and autonomy. The scaffold erected here is designed for coercion and control. Exposure, transparency, and accountability are urgent. An evidence based Cochrane type assessment of their “research” and an Institute of Medicine Conflict of Interest review are long overdue.

In addition it is a “rigged game” as the ASAM makes the public policy and the FSPHP enforces it. Furthermore the FSPHP mandates that physicians be evaluated at a “PHP-approved” facility. All of the medical directors of these facilities (which number around 20) are ASAM physicians “in recovery.” It is essentially self-referral.

A State Audit done in North Carolina found no oversight or regulation of the State PHP from either the state Medical Board or the Medical Society. In addition they found lack of due process for physicians and exposed the conflicts of interest between the PHP and the out of state treatment programs. They concluded abuse could occur but not be detected.  It is the same scaffold present in Massachusetts.

The Medical Director and CEO of the North Carolina Physicians Health Program (NCPHP) Dr. Warren J. Pendergast, M.D. is the immediate past President of the Federation of State Physician Health Programs (FSPHP)  and the audit findings of the NCPHP are standard operational procedure for other state programs fully infiltrated by the FSPHP.

The same infrastructure that exists in North Carolina and Massachusetts exists in other states.   In this system there is absolutely no oversight from the medical board, the medical society, department of health or anyone else for that matter.  They truly have removed all aspects of accountability.

PHS, inc. has been given cart blanche power in the assessment, treatment, monitoring, and disposition of all physicians referred to them.

The previous Medical Director of the Massachusetts PHP, Physicians Health Services, Inc. (PHS) for fourteen years (prior to Dr. Steve Adelman) , Dr. Luis Sanchez, is also a past President of the FSPHP.

And although  PHS did not enter into formal partnership with the FSPHP until 2013, Sanchez and PHS Director of Operations Linda Bresnahan (who was interviewed for the recent Medscape article critical of PHPs) have both had long term involvement in the political hierarchy of the FSPHP and, in fact, helped develop the prototype for other states.

PHS, inc. exclusive use of out of state treatment programs has been challenged. In the past PHS, Inc. has adamantly refused to allow physicians to be evaluated in State despite it being one of the medical hubs of the country. Physicians in Massachusetts who are referred for evaluation in Kansas, Georgia, Alabama, and West Virginia as PHS has convinced the Board that only these facilities are ‘experienced in the assessment and treatment of health care professionals.”

In actual fact the medical directors of all of these preferred facilities are also ASAM physicians with the vast majority being in 12-step “recovery” themselves and close colleagues,  if not friends of the medical directors of other state PHPs.

There is also documentary evidence that PHS, inc. is colluding with third parties (labs and treatment centers) to misrepresent test results and diagnoses in conspiracy to commit fraud.  Documentation shows purposeful and intentional act to commit “confirmatory distortion” which is the deliberate misinterpretation or misrepresentation of facts to support a predetermined hypothesis.

Knight and Boyd note in “Ethical and Managerial Considerations Regarding State Physician Health Programs” “To further complicate matters, many evaluation/ treatment centers depend on state PHP referrals for their financial viability. Because of this, if, in its referral of a physician, the PHP highlights a physician as particularly problematic, the evaluation center might—whether consciously or otherwise— tailor its diagnoses and recommendations in a way that will support the PHP’s impression of that physician.

To consciously “tailor” a diagnosis or recommendation based on the PHPs impression of a physician is fraud.

Documentary evidence shows how PHS, inc. is engaging in fraud by colluding with a “PHP-approved” assessment center to fabricate and falsify neuropsychological tests to show “denial” and “relapse” with normal objective raw data being interpreted as abnormal. (again verified by a third-party oversight agency which resulted in the colluding party being forced to correct the results under threat of disciplinary action).

But without any regulation or meaningful oversight of PHS and no appeal process or avenue for the reporting or investigation for the physician, PHS has been able to get away with this misconduct with impunity and immunity. Complaints are either ignored, dismissed, or justified by sympathizers, apologists and a great deal of “willful ignorance.”

There should be zero tolerance for forensic fraud at all levels but when a person’s career, life and liberty are at stake and the perpetrator is in a position of power this conduct is particularly egregious. The damage done by a positive drug or alcohol test can be severe, far-reaching, and permanent. Intentionally and purposefully misrepresenting drug or alcohol tests by manipulation and fraud is unethical and needs to be addressed in real time. Those who engage in such behavior need to be held accountable for their actions.

For these reasons I petition Suzanne Bump to initiate a performance audit on PHS, inc. to detect fraud and abuse. There is currently no meaningful way to report, investigate, and hold accountable abuse of power in PHS, inc. Transparency, oversight, regulation, and accountability are essential.

The Physicians of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts deserve better than this.

When Dentists Go Too Far: North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission

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Originally posted on Article 8:Antitrust litigation hasn’t disappeared, but rather changed its focus. Instead of targeting the great railroad empires of the late 19th century, today’s antitrust efforts focus on more minute industries, like dentistry. In October, the Supreme Court heard arguments for North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission, in which…

http://disruptedphysician.com/2015/03/20/when-dentists-go-too-far-north-carolina-board-of-dental-examiners-v-federal-trade-commission/

Competent, Ethical and Fair Legal Representation for Doctors —A Possible New Niche area for Lawyers.

mllangan1 4 Comments

Wretched creatures are compelled by the severity of the torture to confess things they have never done and so by cruel butchery innocent lives are taken; and by new alchemy, gold and silver are coined from human blood.– Father Cornelius Loos (1592)  “PHP-Approved Attorneys” My survey has revealed an additional factor stacking the deck and removing accountability from […]

http://disruptedphysician.com/2015/05/29/competent-ethical-and-fair-legal-representation-for-doctors-a-possible-new-niche-area-for-lawyers/

Medscape Medical News—Physician Health Programs: More Harm Than Good? State-Based Programs Under Fire

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Screen Shot 2015-07-27 at 9.11.46 AMMedscape Medical News > Psychiatry

Physician Health Programs: More Harm Than Good?
State-Based Programs Under Fire
Pauline Anderson
August 19, 2015

There is growing scrutiny of US physician health programs (PHPs), which are state-based plans for doctors with substance abuse or other mental health problems.

Detractors of the PHP system claim physicians who voluntarily disclose they have mental health or drug problems can be forced into treatment without recourse, face expensive contracts, and are frequently sent out of their home state to receive the prescribed therapy. Some physicians allege that during their interaction with the treatment centers, large amounts of money were demanded up front before any assessment was even conducted.

In addition, critics assert that there is no real oversight and regulation of these programs.

Called by turns coercive, controlling, and secretive, with possible conflicts of interest, some say the PHP experience has led vulnerable physicians to contemplate suicide.
Two states ― North Carolina and Michigan ― have already been asked to step in and investigate many of the issues raised by PHP critics. In North Carolina, the state agreed with many of the concerns raised and recommended “better oversight” by its medical board and society. And in Michigan, litigation in the form of a class action lawsuit has been launched against the Health Professional Recovery Program (HPRP), a program similar to PHPs.

Michael Langan, MD, an internal medicine specialist in Boston, has first-hand experience with a PHP.

Dr Langan was at Massachusetts General and Harvard University in Boston when he approached the Massachusetts state PHP to help him get off an opioid analgesic. He had begun taking the drug to help him sleep after developing shingles and said he spent several months in prescribed PHP treatment after “signing on the dotted line.”

On his first day at the assessment center, Dr Langan said he was asked how he was going to pay $80,000 cash. “This was before they even evaluated me,” he told Medscape Medical News. Subsequently, Dr Langan said he underwent an independent hair and fingernail analysis that turned out to be negative “for all substances of abuse.”

Since then, he has been documenting possible cases of negative interaction with these organizations. The system, he says, leaves physicians “without rights, depersonalized and dehumanized.”
He fears that the role of PHPs has expanded well beyond its original scope, becoming monitoring programs that have the power to refer physicians for evaluation and treatment even on the basis of administrative failings, such as being behind on chart notes, he said.

He has heard reports of “disruptive physicians” being diagnosed with “character defects.” The monitored physician, he added, “is forced to abide by any and all demands of the PHP ― no matter how unreasonable ― under the coloration of medical utility and without any evidentiary standard or right to appeal. Once in, it’s a nightmare.”

Disempowered, Without Recourse

It is estimated that 10% to 12% of physicians will develop a drug or alcohol problem at some point during their careers.

PHPs were initially established to help physicians grappling with a substance abuse or mental health problem and to provide them with access to confidential treatment while avoiding professional investigation and potential disciplinary action.

Often staffed by volunteer physicians and funded by state medical societies, the original intent of these programs was to help health professionals recover while protecting the public from potentially unsafe practitioners.

PHPs assess and monitor the physicians referred to them. In most states, physicians who comply with PHP recommendations can continue to work, provided they undergo regular drug testing and other testing to ensure sobriety.

Some PHPs are run by independent nonprofit corporations, others by state medical societies. Still others receive support from state medical licensing boards. The relationship of each PHP to the state medical board varies. The scope of services offered through PHPs also differs.

Today, such programs exist in every state except California, Nebraska, and Wisconsin and are represented by an umbrella organization known as the Federation of State Physician Health Programs (FSPHP).

According to its mission statement, the FSPHP’s mandate is to “support physician health programs in improving the health of medical professionals, thereby contributing to quality patient care.”

Coercive Process

Concerns about the PHP system have been percolating for a number of years. In 2012, an editorial by J. Wesley Boyd, MD, PhD, Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, and John R Knight, MD, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine brought many of the issues to the profession’s attention.

In their editorial, Dr Boyd and Dr Knight alleged that once a mental health issue has been disclosed, doctors are “compelled” to enter a PHP and are instructed to comply with any PHP recommendations or face disciplinary action.

“Thus, for most physicians, participation in a PHP evaluation is coercive, and once a PHP recommends monitoring, physicians have little choice but to cooperate with any and all recommendations, if they wish to continue practicing medicine.”

In an interview with Medscape Medical News, Dr Boyd, who was associate director of the Massachusetts PHP for 6 years, elaborated on what he sees as the lack of due process afforded physicians by such programs.

“In general, these programs are given a free pass because it’s doctors helping doctors, and the feeling is that they wouldn’t be doing that if they weren’t generally nice people concerned about the well-being of others.”

Although many PHPs and the individuals running them are well intentioned, “there are generally few avenues for meaningful appeal” for doctors wishing to dispute PHP treatment recommendations, said Dr Boyd.

Approached on this question, the FSPHP’s director of program operations, Linda Bresnahan, maintains in a written response to Medscape Medical News that “options exist for a physician to seek an additional independent evaluation” and to appeal to the medical board or workplace.

Not so, said Dr Boyd, who counters that physicians have been made to feel “disempowered” and without recourse. “People tend to think that if you raise complaints, you’re just bellyaching and your complaint can’t be legitimate.”

Dr Boyd also said he has heard anecdotal reports of a number of doctors whose interactions with a PHP were so difficult they became suicidal.

“It’s not surprising that if you have your licensing board crawling up your rear end, rates of depression go up and rates of suicide go up,” he said.

Regular Audits in Order?

More and more physicians, even those involved in a PHP, feel that regular monitoring of such programs is in order. For example, Dr Boyd said there should be routine audits “to ensure that rampant abuses of power are not happening.”

Asked whether she believes random audits for state PHPs are warranted, the FSPHP’s Bresnahansaid that the federation “supports quality assurance processes, utilizing both internal and external approaches, and is working to develop guidelines for PHPs to promote accountability, consistency, and excellence.”

Michael Myers, MD, professor of clinical psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, in New York City, who is on the advisory board of the New York PHP, also favors audits.

Dr Myers has been in practice for 35 years, the last 20 of which have been devoted to caring for physicians and their families. There is no doubt, he told Medscape Medical News, that his state’s PHP program has been “absolutely lifesaving” for some doctors.

However, he acknowledged that there have also been “a lot of unhappy campers” who took issue with the program’s process. At the same time, though, he can recall only one physician who made a formal complaint. Dr Myers noted that the PHP program was initiated on the premise, “if we don’t govern ourselves, then someone else will do it for us.”

“We are trying to have some autonomy, but if a person is unhappy, there isn’t the same mechanism that would exist, say, at a university, where there’s a whole protocol that a professor with a grievance can follow.”

This lack of mechanism for due process was at issue in a recent Michigan class action lawsuit launched by three health care professionals (two registered nurses and one physician assistant), who claim in the statement of complaint to represent the “hundreds, and potentially thousands of licensed health professionals injured by the arbitrary application of summary suspension procedures.”

Although the state program was originally designed to simply monitor the treatment of health professionals recommended by providers, the HPRP has recently “unilaterally expanded its role to include making treatment decisions,” according to the complaints.

They state that “the mandatory requirements of HPRP, coupled with the threat of summary suspension, make involvement in HPRP an involuntary program circumventing the due process rights of licensees referred to the program.”

They also claim the “involuntary” nature of HPRP policies and procedures and the unanimous application of suspension procedures upon HPRP case closure “are clear violations of procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment,” the plaintiffs claim.

Initially, the three plaintiffs had their licenses arbitrarily suspended. But in each case, the suspension was promptly overturned by a judge.

For some who have been watching these events, this lawsuit just might be the catalyst to make much needed changes to physician health programs across the country.

“Kafkaesque Nightmare”

Jesse Cavenar, Jr, MD, vice chairman and professor emeritus, Department of Psychiatry, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, Northcarolina, calls the PHP experience a “Kafkaesque nightmare.” Although he himself has not been referred to a PHP, he said a psychiatrist colleague of his, who was anonymously accused of smelling like alcohol, was evaluated and subsequently diagnosed with alcohol abuse.

According to Dr Cavenar, there was nothing to support the diagnosis. The doctor also claimed that the “thorough” physical examination noted in his record was never conducted. In the end, said Dr Cavenar, the psychiatrist was in treatment for 13 months. His medical and legal bills topped $90,000.

Dr Cavenar, who obtained power of attorney in this case, tried but failed to communicate with the treatment facility on behalf of his colleague. He also failed to obtain the medical record.

“When you have a facility that has made a diagnosis and they refuse to talk to anybody about how they made that diagnosis, you say, ‘Something is wrong here.’ ”

During his brush with the PHP system, Dr Cavenar also discovered that at least one evaluation facility has an “understanding” with the referring PHP that a physician will be diagnosed and spend a minimum 90-day interaction period in the treatment facility.

Medscape Medical News spoke to another knowledgeable, highly placed source, who asked not to be identified. He supported Dr Cavenar’s assertion of a mandatory 90-day assessment period, saying he had heard from two other physicians who had undergone treatment in the PHP system that there was in fact such a mandatory period proscribed for them in advance even of an evaluation to determine their level of need.

“I’m no bleeding heart; if you do the crime, you do the time,” said Dr Cavenar. “That’s not what we’re seeing here. We’re seeing people who didn’t do the crime but who are getting tapped with time.”

Bresnahan told Medscape Medical News via email that FSPHP is not aware of a blanket “90-day minimum interaction period” with treatment centers. Rather, among the many treatment centers familiar to PHPs, there are a variety of “programs” within the treatment centers that vary in length, and a variety of programs such as outpatient, intensive outpatient to residential treatment, and variations of residential treatment.

“Treatment centers often offer a 1- to 5-day multidisciplinary evaluation to determine treatment needs, including length of stay and outpatient vs inpatient treatment options. In general, residential treatment centers offer different programming that vary in length of stay from 30-day treatment programs to 45-day treatment programs to 90-day treatment programs.

“Along with these options, PHPs do utilize treatment centers that will provide clients with a variable number of days of treatment. In these examples, the treatment center determines the recommended length of stay during the course of treatment based on clinical needs,” she notes.

Asked about treatment costs to physicians, Bresnahan responded that she is unaware of reports of large lump sums expected on admission.

“FSPHP is unaware of excessive up-front fees in the $80,000 range,” she writes. “It is our understanding that a treatment phase can range from $5000 to $50,000 depending upon the days and the type of programs.

“A number of healthcare professional programs are now having progress with insurance reimbursement to offset portions of the cost,” she adds. “Some offer financial assistance based on a needs assessments, and some may also offer payment plans,” Bresnahan told Medscape Medical News.

Dr Cavenar felt so strongly about his colleague not having due process that he lobbied for an audit of North Carolina’s PHP.

His initial efforts were ignored by the state medical board, he said, so he approached the state governor’s office. Finally, Dr Cavenar said he and three other concerned psychiatrists successfully secured a state audit of North Carolina’s PHP system, the results of which were released in April 2014.

PHP Originator Speaks Out

According to psychiatrist Nicholas Stratas, MD, one of the problems with the North Caroline PHP is that decisions regarding a referred physician are vetted by a legal team.

Dr Stratas has a unique vantage point. He was the originator of the North Carolina PHP, was the first-ever psychiatrist and president of the North Carolina Medical Board, and still holds numerous affiliations with both Duke University and the University of North Carolina.

“In our state, the PHP has turned into something that was never intended…. [It] has become bureaucratized and legalized,” he told Medscape Medical News. “When I was on the board, we had one attorney; now, they must have six or seven attorneys, and the whole job of triaging physicians is left to the legal department.”

Dr Stratas said that at least until the state audit, the North Carolina PHP left physicians with no legal recourse once they were referred to a treatment facility.

“They have taken the position that because they are a peer review mechanism, they don’t have to comply with the nationally recognized condition that everybody should have access to their own records; they will not provide records to the physician.”

Dr Stratas related the case of a psychiatrist who after a detailed assessment was determined to have no addiction or mental health problems. This psychiatrist got caught up in the PHP system after an anonymous caller complained about “weird” behavior, according to Dr Stratas.

On questionable advice from his attorney, the psychiatrist voluntarily suspended his medical licence, thinking it was temporary and would help sort the situation out, but now he cannot get it back until he undergoes “treatment,” said Dr Stratas. After almost 2 years, said Dr Stratas, this psychiatrist is still without his medical licence.

Auditor’s Report: Potential for Undetected Abuse

The state auditor’s report found no abuse by North Carolina’s PHP. However, there was a caveat ― the report determined that abuse could occur and potentially go undetected.

It also found that the North Carolina PHP created the appearance of conflicts of interest by allowing the centers to provide both patient evaluation and treatments and that procedures did not ensure that physicians receive quality evaluations and treatment because the PHP had no documented criteria for selecting treatment centers and did not adequately monitor them.

“Abuse could occur and not be detected…because physicians were not allowed to effectively represent themselves when disputing evaluations… [and because] the North Carolina Medical Board did not periodically evaluate the Program and the North Carolina Medical Society did not provide adequate oversight,” the auditor’s report noted.

The North Carolina PHP “did not use documented criteria to select treatment centers” and “did not conduct periodic evaluation of the treatment centers to ensure compliance with established operating criteria.”

The auditor added that the program’s “predominant” use of out-of-state treatment centers placed an undue burden on physicians.

Furthermore, according to the report, the North Carolina PHP “created the appearance of conflicts of interest by allowing treatment centers that receive Program referrals to fund its retreats, paying scholarships for physicians who could not afford treatment directly to treatment centers, and allowing the center to provide both patient evaluations and treatments.”

The report recommended that physicians have access to “objective independent due process procedures” developed by the state medical board and medical society and that plans be implemented for “better oversight” of the program.

The report also stated that North Carolina’s PHP was required to make it clear that physicians “may choose separate evaluation and treatment providers” and that the PHP undertake efforts to identify qualified in-state treatment centers for physicians.

Since its release almost a year ago, many of these recommendations have been addressed by the North Carolina Medical Board.

“We absolutely embrace the auditor’s recommendations and are working really hard to implement them,” Thom Mansfield, the board’s chief legal counsel, told Medscape Medical News.

North Carolina’s PHP has undertaken to provide periodic reports to the medical board, and an independent audit of the program will be carried out every 3 years, Mansfield added.

Physicians who disagree with their assessment or treatment can now have their case reviewed by a committee independent of the PHP compliance committee and of the medical board, he said.

Mansfield also noted that the state PHP has established criteria for identifying suitable centers to conduct assessments and offer treatment, with an emphasis on developing more in-state resources. “I know the PHP is now referring people to at least two in-state centers,” he said.

In taking these actions, said Mansfield, the North Carolina Medical Board hopes it is “showing leadership” for other states.

Robin Williams Melancholy Suicide–Hopelessness, Helplessness and Defeat

mllangan1 10 Comments
 
Published one year ago on DisruptedPhysician.com/blog.  Although more details have been revealed the premise of the post remains the same. Depression, as with any mental illness, needs to be diagnosed, monitored and treated by educated, trained and experienced experts in depression. Not self-proclaimed experts.  
 
There’s something in his soul
O’er which his melancholy sits on brood,
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger—which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination……..
It shall be so.    Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
—Hamlet Act III, Scene 1
According to Radar Online Robin Williams is looking “grim and focused.”  Grim? Yes. Focused? No.  His visage is one of entrapment, despair, and dread.
In  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s  The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway observes that “the loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly”   This is not focus but melancholia–hopelessness, helplessness, and defeat.
In 1896 Émile Durkheim described “melancholy suicide” as being “connected with a general state of extreme depression and exaggerated sadness, causing the patient no longer to realize sanely the bonds which connect him with people and things about him. Pleasures no longer attract.”  Williams’ face  is weighted with melancholy. Not focus.

Heightened perceptions of defeat and entrapment are known to be powerful predictors of suicide. According to the “Cry of Pain” model people are particularly prone to suicide when life  experiences are interpreted as signaling defeat, defined as a sense of a “failed struggle.” Unable to find some sort of resolution to a defeating situation, a sense of entrapment proliferates and the perception of no way out provides the central impetus for ending one’s life.

As in all suicidal tragedies, the role of addiction and mental illness has been posited as the cause. Although depression and substance abuse are the two biggest risk factors for suicide, neither explains  completion of the act–the descent from ideation and planning to finality and oblivion.  Saying suicide is caused by depression and drugs is like claiming marijuana is a “gateway drug” to heroin.  It may be a a common related  pre-conditional occurrence but it is not the cause.  It is a non sequitur.   And just as most marijuana users never develop an inclination to stick an opiate filled needle into their veins, the majority of depressed individuals and substance abusers do not kill themselves.   One does not lead to the other.

And as we have seen in the reports of bullied teenagers who have died by suicide, it is all too often the bullies themselves who are quickest to pronounce this conclusion.   Attributing suicide to mental illness and substance abuse deflects culpability.  It negates the need for further inquiry.  It creates an absence of the need to change.   The rationalization diffuses both individual and collective blame.   It scatters  responsibility and guilt.  It is both an individual and community defense mechanism.  Incessantly and chronically shaming, humiliating, and degrading another person because of race, body type, sexual preference or whatever perceived eccentricity or non-conformity threatened the community herd was irrelevant.  It played no role.  It was drink, drugs, or depression–the unspoken understanding is  they would have done it anyway.   And no one stops to ponder that said depression or desire to alter ones mental state just might in actual fact be a symptom of the humiliation and shame they themselves created.   And it works.  The bullies are never held accountable. But it is nevertheless they who figuratively loaded the gun, placed it in the victims mouth, and pulled the trigger.

The  link between bullying and suicide is well known,  especially when combined with entrapment and the feeling there is no way out.  “They would have done it anyway.” No, they would not have and a modicum of perceived support, concern, kindness and understanding  from others may have prevented it.

Dr. Drew Pinsky seemed omnipresent in discussing Williams suicide; delivering authoritative pronouncements with seeming omniscience and certainty.     “The death of Robin Williams has led me to this plea — let’s loudly and seriously address something that’s still hidden, stigmatized and even ignored in this country: Mental illness,” Pinsky writes on his blog.  I don’t see the logic here.  How is exposing mental illness a product of Williams suicide.  He was  open, unashamed, and forthright about his prior addictions and depression.  He was not hiding it.  Neither is the 21st century for that matter.

The more important issue that I see needs pleading, is that mental illness be properly, accurately, and thoughtfully diagnosed and treated.

Depression, as with any mental illness, needs to be diagnosed, monitored, and treated by educated, trained, and experienced experts in depression.   Not self-proclaimed experts.     Pinsky’s specialty is “addiction medicine” and he is “board certified” by the American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM).

The American Society of Addiction Medicine can trace its roots to the 1954 founding of the New York City Medical Society on Alcoholism (NYCMSA) by Ruth Fox, M.D.,  whose husband died from alcoholism. This  group promoted the concept of alcoholism as a chronic relapsing brain disease requiring lifelong spiritual recovery through the 12-steps of AA. And the primary goal of the ASAM is and always has been the acceptance of 12-step doctrine, lifelong abstinence, and spiritual recovery as the one and only treatment for addiction.  It always will be.

This philosophy and guiding doctrine stems from the “impaired physician movement”, a group that,  according to British sociologist G.V. Stimson: ” is characterized by a number of evangelical recovered alcoholic and addict physicians, whose recovery has been accompanied by an involvement in medical society and treatment programs. Their ability to make authoritative pronouncements on physician impairment is based on their own claim to insider’s knowledge.”  This group grew in numbers, organized, and eventually became the ASAM.

The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS)  recognizes 24 medical specialties and subspecialties. Addiction Medicine is not one of them. The only ABMS recognized subspecialty is Addiction Psychiatry and it requires a four-year psychiatric-residency program followed by a 1-year Fellowship focusing on addiction in an accredited training program.

In contrast, ABAM certification requires only a medical degree, a valid license to practice medicine, and completion of residency training in ANY specialty.

Hazelden, the facility where Williams was admitted in July is an ASAM facility.  And the  Medical Director, Marvin Seppala is a Like-Minded Doc.   Unlike most ASAM physicians, however, Seppala is a psychiatrist. But he is a psychiatrist brought up in the folds of ASAM ideology. He was, in fact, the first adolescent graduate of Hazelden in the 1970s when he completed the program at the age of 19.

Pinsky, predictably goes on to state that “Williams had a brain disease, ” He posits it against demons or devils as if it is either/or.  This concrete splitting of complex subjects into two separate entities to claim only one correct is just one of many simplistic and misleading “false dichotomies” used by the ASAM.     Of course addiction is a brain disease.    But in reality the definition is unhelpful unless we are living in the Victorian era. It’s like saying Gonorrhea is a genital disease  not  venereal (from Latin venereus “of sexual love”).  In reality it involves a number of factors including both psychosocial and medical.  Cornering a definition does nothing to advance knowledge and care.

Addiction is multifactorial and diverse. Simplifying it into binary options does little to advance understanding.   And it too involves a variety of issues including the situational, the psychosocial, the genetic and the biochemical.   Like every other medical issue there are a number of factors to be taken into consideration.  And imposing the 12-steps to salvation on all-comers is not only illogical, but anti-science, and downright improper.    It can also be deadly.  Especially when the the person it is imposed on is not a full-blown addict but a substance abuser. an experimenter, a dabbler, or someone who has simply had a “lapse.”

The ASAM emphasizes that addiction is a “brain disease” and not a “moral failing” in a mutually exclusive construct that allows either one or the other but not both.  It is presented as a dichotomy in which the promotion of one both precludes and dismisses the other.  It is either black or white. Period.

But substance use, abuse, and addiction comes in every color, saturation, hue and shade.   Psychosocial, behavioral, and social factors play a role in the actions and deeds of everyone including those addicted to alcohol and drugs.  The disease concept neglects this multifactorial confluence of factors that ultimately produce a given behavior by viewing all behavior a product of the “disease.”   Any and all behavior is simply a product of a “brain disease” in the addicted individual who cannot be trusted to make decisions on his own but has to be told what to do as part of the treatment.   A danger to himself and others  the addict cannot be trusted to make his own decisions, so we must make them for him.

The chronic brain disease model is an oversimplification of the complex and a false dichotomy–so too is bifurcating  “recovery” and “relapse,” treatment” and  “discipline,”  and “confession”and “denial.”  Anything less than total abstinence constitutes an illness.

One true dichotomy  that exists among the proponents of the chronic brain disease model of addiction with  lifelong abstinence and spiritual recovery is  a  person is either “with them” or “against them.”

Dr. Drew Pinsky notes “there were a number of factors” that contributed to William’s condition.  He states “alcoholism is certainly one. He may have had a genetic potential for depression. Addiction and depression can be an easily fatal combination.”    Non-sequitur.

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Depression needs to be treated by thoughtful, educated, competent and trained experts in depression not self-declared experts.    ASAM doctors are not “real” experts.  They are pretend experts trumpeting one frozen paradigm while dismissing or ignoring others.  It is expert opinion where the goal is not new knowledge and and new discovery. The die  is cast.  And most of the “research” put out by this group consists of methodologically unsound studies published in their journals in which an attempt is made to make the data fit an already determined hypothesis.

Point being that depression needs to be evaluated and treated by trained professionals who understand depression. Psychiatrists, psychopharmacologists, neuropsychologists, and psychologists schooled in a broad spectrum of treatment modalities.   Numerous depression treatments are available.  If one treatment fails or is ineffective then others must be tried.    Most depression is treatable, especially subacute or acute depression.  SSRIs, SNRIs SNDRIs, tricyclics, MAOs, and atypical antidepressants are available. Different types of psychotherapy are available–cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, dialectic behavioral therapy, mindfulness therapy, and Jungian psychoanalysis can be beneficial for people suffering from depression.  And ECT and TMS can also play a role in depression refractory to medications and psychotherapy.

Depression is extremely common in Parkinson’s disease but due to the dopamine loss it requires special consideration of what drugs to use and not use.  SSRI’s can sometimes worsen the condition.   Consultation with a knowledgable and experienced neurologist is critical.

I do not know what assessments or treatments were being tried in Robin Williams.   But the treatment modalities offered by ASAM physicians are usually few to one.

The majority of “addiction medicine” specialists are not psychiatrists.   For all you know you may find yourself being treated by an addiction  “specialist” who was a practicing proctologist just a few years prior; and perhaps not even a good one at that.

Moreover, many of the ASAM physicians are “anti-medication” and may take people off medications that have been helping them and that they need.   And the devastating results are often  seen after the patient has been discharged home.

Taken off drugs while in rehab and sent home without them, the beneficial effects may wear off gradually. And as they do mental conditions may deteriorate.   Manic episodes, paranoid psychoses, extreme anxiety, and profound depression can all occur well after someone has been discharged home.   So can suicide.

And when this happens the ASAM doctors  blame it on their fatal “disease” when, just as is seen with the suicides of bullied teens, it was actually they  who put the gun to their heads and pulled the trigger.

Depression needs to be treated by experts in depression.   Putting someone in a one-size fits all shackled and frozen mold can be fatal.  And calling them  helpless addicts with a chronic disease who have no control due to character defects adds kindling to the fire.  Depressed people need empowerment not powerlessness;  self-esteem not shame.  Shame is devastating. It goes right to the core of the person’s identity making them feel exposed, inferior, and degraded.  Dehumanized, delegitimized, and vulnerable.  The link between bullying and suicide is clear.  And this is especially true when combined with entrapment.  The feeling there is no way out.

When society gives power of diagnosis and treatment to individuals  within a group schooled in just one uncompromising model of addiction with the majority attributing their very own sobriety to that model, they will exercise that power to diagnose and treat anyone and everyone according to that model.   And it can be fatal.

Under a dictatorship everything else becomes subordinated to the guiding philosophy of the dictatorship.   Corresponding doctrine replaces ethics as well as professional guidelines, standards of care, and evidence based medicine.  Ideology usurps critical thinking.  Having only a hammer, everyone is seen as a nail  A symphony with just one note.

And faith in institutions demands mass adherence to faith in that authority. Direct challenge to the status quo undermines the publics blind faith. The biggest obstacle is thimages-4at this system allows them to throw the normal rules of conduct under the imperative of a higher goal assumed to trump all other consideration.

All of medicine needs to be predicated on competence, thoughtfulness, good-faith, civility, honesty, and integrity. This is universally applicable.  All specialties of medicine are required by that specialty to practice evidence based medicine and avoid conflicts of interest except one–addiction medicine.  Due to a confluence of factors they have been given a pass.

But the validity and reliability of opinions lie in their underlying methodology.  Reliance on the personal authority of any expert or group of experts is a logical fallacy.

And in order to save American Medicine this  problem needs to be clearly recognized.  The ASAM has a monopoly on addiction medicine. Treatment of substance abuse in this country is, in fact, defined by the impaired physicians movement paradigm.

A paradigm that is in actuality rife with methodologically flawed studies, cherry picking, bias, and cognitive distortion.  A paradigm that places expert opinion, ideology, and doctrine above critical thinking and evidence base.   Coercion and control are placed above patient autonomy and individual choice because the patient has a “disease” and can’t think for himself.  So we’ll think for him.    The  conflicts of interest are many and complex. They would be unimaginable in other fields of medicine.

But  I agree with Pinsky on one point.  His  comment that addiction and depression can be a deadly combination is true. And this is especially so when treatment of the addiction is the primary focus and consists of imposed 12-step indoctrination and the depression remains untreated or ineffectively treated.    That is a deadly combination indeed–and one that can easily lead a person down the road of hopelessness, helplessness, and despair. And it is time the medical field as a whole shined some light on this.  Let’s hold addiction medicine to the same standards of conduct and care as the rest of the profession.

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Recovery Related Racket: The Federation of State Physician Health Programs (FSPHP) represents the drug and alcohol testing, assessment and treatment industry not us. We need to name the enemy.

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“It is easier to believe a lie one has heard a hundred times than a truth one has never heard before.” –Robert S. Lynd

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1980s–Your Money or Your Medical License

Ridgeview Institute was a drug and alcohol treatment program for “impaired physicians” in Georgia created by G. Douglas Talbott, a former cardiologist who lost control of his drinking and recovered through the 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Up until his death on October 18, 2014 at the age of 90, Talbott owned and directed a number of treatment facilities for impaired professionals, most recently the Talbott Recovery Campus in Atlanta, one of the preferred referrals for physicians ordered into evaluation and treatment by licensing boards today.

G. Douglas Talbott is a prototypical example of an “impaired physician movement”physician–in fact in many ways he may be considered the”godfather” of the current organization.  He helped organize and serve as past president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and was a formative figure in the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) Impaired Physician Program.

The cost of a 28-day program for nonprofessionals at Ridgeview in 1987 was $10,000 while the cost was “higher for those going through impaired-health professionals program,” which lasted months rather than 28 days.1

In 1975 after creating the DeKalb County Impaired Physicians Committee for the Medical Association of Georgia, Talbott founded the Georgia Disabled Doctors Program for the assessment and treatment of physicians. Founded in part because “traditional one-month treatment programs are inadequate for disabled doctors,” and they required longer treatment to recover from addiction and substance abuse.   According to Talbott, rehabilitation programs that evaluate and treat the rest of the population for substance abuse issues are incapable of doing so in doctors as they are unlike any other of the inhabitants of our society. Physicians are unique. Unique because of their incredibly high denial”, and he includes this in what he calls the “Four MDs,” “M-Deity”, “Massive Denial” “Militant Defensiveness” and “More Drugs.”2   And these factors set doctors apart from the rest.

According to Talbott, “impaired doctors must first acknowledge their addiction and overcome their ‘terminal uniqueness’ before they can deal with a drug or alcohol problem.” “Terminal uniqueness “ is a phrase Talbott uses to describe doctors’ tendency to think they can heal themselves.“M-Deity” refers to doctors “being trained to think they’re God;”3 blinded by an overblown sense of self-importance and thinking that they are invincible-an unfounded generalization considering the vast diversity of individuals that make up our profession.   Screen Shot 2015-07-28 at 1.14.49 AM

Although this type of personality does exist in medicine,  it is a small minority -just one of many opinions with little probative value offered as factual expertise by the impaired physician movement and now sealed in stone.

This attitude, according to some critics, stems from the personal histories of the treatment staff, including Talbott, who are recovering alcoholics and addicts themselves. One such critic was Assistant Surgeon General under C. Everett Koop John C. Duffy who said that Ridgeview suffered from a “boot-camp mentality” toward physicians under their care and “assume every physician suffering from substance abuse is the same lying, stealing, cheating, manipulating individual they were when they had the illness. Certainly some physicians are manipulative, but it’s naïve to label all physicians with these problems.”1

American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) President (1981-1983) LeClair Bissell was also highly critical of Talbott’s approach. Bissell, co-author of the first textbook of ethics for addiction professionals4 when asked if there was any justification to the claim that doctors are sicker than other people and more vulnerable to addiction replied:

“Well, based on my treatment experience, I think they are less sick and much easier to treat than many other groups. I think one reason for that is that in order to become a physician…one has to have jumped over a great many hurdles. One must pass the exams, survive the screening tests and the interviews, be able to organize oneself well enough to do examinations and so on, and be observed by a good many colleagues along the way. Therefore I think the more grossly psychotic, or sicker, are frequently screened out along the way. The ones we get in treatment are usually people who are less brain-damaged, are still quite capable of learning, are reasonably bright. Not only that, but they are quite well motivated in most cases to hang on to their licenses, the threat of the loss of which is frequently what puts them in treatment in the first place. So are they hard to treat? No! Are they easy patients? Yes! Are they more likely to be addicted than other groups? We don’t know.”5“I’m not much for the bullying that goes along with some of these programs,” Bissell commented to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in 1987.3

The constitution did a series of reports after five inpatients died by suicide during a four-year period at Ridgeview.6 In addition there were at least 20 more who had killed themselves over the preceding 12 years after leaving the treatment center.1

Bissell, the recipient of the 1997 Elizabeth Blackwell Award for outstanding contributions to the cause of women and medicine remarked: “When you’ve got them by the license, that’s pretty strong leverage. You shouldn’t have to pound on them so much. You could be asking for trouble.”3

According to Bissell: “There’s a lot of debate in the field over whether treatment imposed by threats is worthwhile…To a large degree a person has to seek the treatment on his own accord before it will work for him.”3

A jury awarded $1.3 million to the widow of one of the deceased physicians against Ridgeview,7 and other lawsuits initiated on behalf of suicides were settled out of court.6

The Constitution reported that doctors entered the program under threats of loss of licensure “even when they would prefer treatment that is cheaper and closer to home.”8 The paper also noted that Ridgeview “enjoys unparalleled connections with many local and state medical societies that work with troubled doctors,” “licensing boards often seek recommendations from such groups in devising an approved treatment plan,” and those in charge are often “physicians who themselves have successfully completed Ridgeview’s program.”8

In 1997 William L. White interviewed Bissell whom he called “one of the pioneers in the treatment of impaired professionals.” The interview was not published until after her death in 2008 per her request.   Noting that her book Alcoholism in the Professions9“ remains one of the classics in the field”, White asked her when those in the field began to see physicians and other professionals as a special treatment population; to which she replied:

“When they started making money in alcoholism. As soon as insurance started covering treatment, suddenly you heard that residential treatment was necessary for almost everybody. And since alcoholic docs had tons of money compared to the rest of the public, they not only needed residential treatment, they needed residential treatment in a special treatment facility for many months as opposed to the shorter periods of time that other people needed.”10

1995 –The Big Con

In 1995 the impaired physicians movement gained an uninvited seat at the table of power. They accomplished this by offering “treatment” as an alternative to “discipline” and reporting remarkably high success rates.  Talbott reported a “92.3% recovery rate according to information compiled from a five-year follow-up survey based on complete abstinence and other treatment.”11

A 1995 issue of The Federal Bulletin: The Journal of Medical Licensure and Discipline, published by the Federation of State Medical Boards, contains articles outlining impaired physician programs in 8 separate states. Although these articles were little more than descriptive puff-pieces written by the state PHP program directors and included no described study-design or methodology the Editor notes a success rate of about 90% in these programs and others like them 12 and concludes:

“cooperation and communication between the medical boards and the physician health programs must occur in an effort to protect the public while assisting impaired physicians in their recovery.” 12No one bothered to examine the methodology to discern the validity of these claims and it is this acceptance of faith without objective assessment that has allowed the impaired physician movement through the ASAM and FSPH to advance their agenda;  confusing ideological opinions with professional knowledge.

“There is nothing special about a doctor’s alcoholism,” said Bissel

“These special facilities will tell you that they come up with really wonderful recovery rates. They do. And the reason they do is that any time you can grab a professional person by the license and compel him or her into treatment and force them to cooperate with that treatment and then monitor them for years, you’ll get good outcomes—in the high 80s or low 90s in recovery rates—no matter what else you do.”10“The ones I think are really the best ones were not specialized. There were other well-known specialty clinics that claimed all the docs they treated got well, which is sheer rot. They harmed a great many people, keeping them for long, unnecessary treatments and seeing to it that they hit their financial bottom for sure: kids being yanked out of college, being forced to sell homes to pay for treatment, and otherwise being blackmailed on the grounds that your husband has a fatal disease. It’s ugly.”10Stanton Peele’s “In the Belly of the American Society of Addiction Medicine Beast” describes the coercion, bullying, threats and indoctrination that are standard operating procedure in Talbott’s facilities.13  Uncooperative patients, “and this covers a range of sins of commission or omission including offering one’s opinion about one’s treatment,” are “threatened with expulsion and with not being certified-or advocated for with their Boards.”13

The cornerstone of treatment is 12-step spiritual recovery. All new patients are indoctrinated into A.A. and coerced to confess they are addicts or alcoholics. Failure to participate in A.A. and 12-step spirituality means expulsion from the program with the anticipated result being loss of one’s medical license.

In May 1999 Talbott stepped down as president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) as a jury awarded Dr. Leonard Masters a judgment of $1.3 million in actual damages and an undisclosed sum in punitive damages for fraud, malpractice, and the novel claim of false imprisonment.14

The fraud finding required a finding that errors in the diagnosis were intentional. Masters, who was accused of overprescribing narcotics to his patients was told by the director of the Florida PHP that he could either surrender his medical license until the allegations were disproved or submit to a four-day evaluation.

Masters agreed to the latter, thinking he would have an objective and fair evaluation. He was instead diagnosed as “alcohol dependent” and coerced into “treatment under threat of loss of his medical license. Staff would routinely threaten to report any doctor who questioned any aspect of their diagnosis or treatment to their state medical boards “as being an impaired physician, leaving necessary treatment against medical advice,”14  the equivalent of professional suicide.

Masters, however, was not an alcoholic.

According to his attorney, Eric. S. Block,  “No one ever accused him of having a problem with alcohol. Not his friends, not his wife, not his seven children, not his fellow doctors, not his employees, not his employers, No one.” 15

He was released 4 months later and forced to sign a five-year “continuing care” contract with the PHP, also under continued threat of his medical license.

Talbott faced no professional repercussions and no changes in their treatment philosophy or actions were made. They still haven’t.  They have simply tightened the noose and taken steps to remove accountability.

2011–The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB)  as Pawn of the  Federation of State Physician Health Programs (FSPHP)

 Up until his death, Talbott continued to present himself and ASAM as the most qualified advocates for the assessment and treatment of medical professionals for substance abuse and addiction.16

The 2011 FSMB Policy on Physician Impairment identifies, defines, and essentially legitimizes “potential impairment” and “relapse without use.”

A PHP Should be empowered to conduct an intervention based on clinical reasons suggestive of potential impairment.  

Unlike the Board which must build a case capable of withstanding
legal challenge, a PHP can quickly intervene based on reasonable concern."

“Empowered” to conduct an “Intervention” for reasons “suggestive” of “potential” impairment means a doctor can be pulled out of practice for anything.  It essentially gives them carte blanche authority. The disregard for physician rights, due process and validity is self-evident.

in 2011 The ASAM issued a Public Policy Statement on coordination between PHPs, regulatory agencies, and treatment providers recommending  that  only “PHP approved” treatment centers be used in the assessment and treatment of doctors.  A recent audit of the  North Carolina PHP found financial conflicts of interest and no  documented criteria for selecting the out of state treatment centers they used.  The common denominator the audit missed was that the 19  “PHP-approved” centers were all ASAM facilities whose medical directors can be seen on this list.

The FSMB House of Delegates adopted an updated Policy on Physician Impairment at their 2011 annual meeting distinguishing “impairment” and “illness”  stating that Regulatory Agencies should recognize the PHP as their expert in all matters relating to licensed professionals with “potentially impairing illness.”

In most states today any physician referred for an assessment for substance abuse will be mandated to do so in a facility just like Ridgeview.

There is no choice.   In mechanics and mentality, this same system of coercion, control, and indoctrination has metastasized to almost every state only more powerful and opaque in an unregulated gauntlet protected from public scrutiny, answerable and accountable to no one.  Laissez faire Machiavellian egocentricity unleashed.    For what they have done is taken the Ridgeview model and replicated it over time state by state and tightened the noose.  By subverting the established Physician Health Programs (PHPs) started by state medical societies and staffed by volunteer physicians they eliminated those not believing in the mentality of the groupthink.   They then mandated assessment and treatment of all doctors be done at a “PHP-approved” facility which means a facility identical to Ridgeview.  This was done  under the scaffold of the Federation of State Physician Health Programs (FSPHP).  They are now in charge of all things related to physician wellness in doctors.

G. Douglas Talbott defines  “relapse without use”  as  “emotional behavioral abnormalities” that often precede relapse or “in A A language –stinking thinking.”  AA language has entered the Medical Profession and no one even blinked.  It will get worse.

The ASAM has  monopolized addiction treatment in the United States.   It has imposed  it on doctors through the FSPHP.  The FSPHP political apparatus exerts a monopoly of force. It selects who will be monitored and dictates every aspect of what that entails.  It is a, in fact, a  rigged game.

PHPs no longer represent the interests of doctors or the public but the interests of the drug and alcohol testing, assessment and treatment industry.

It is important to recognize that PHPs do not represent the interests of doctors or the public.  PHPs represent the interests of the “recovery industry” including the multi-billion dollar drug and alcohol testing, assessment and treatment industries. Claiming an 80% success rate in doctors this system of institutional injustice is being brandished as the “new paradigm” of addiction treatment. Claiming it a replicable model, the plan is to convince other employee assistance programs to implement the “PHP-blueprint.”

There is enormous inertia—a tyranny of the status quo—in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.-Milton Friedman

  1. Durcanin C, King M. The suicides at Ridgeview Institute: Suicides mar success at Ridgeview with troubled professionals. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. December 18, 1987, 1987: A13.
  2. Gonzales L. When Doctors are Addicts: For physicians getting Drugs is easy. Getting help is not. Chicago Reader. July 28, 1988, 1988.
  3. King M, Durcanin C. The suicides at Ridgeview Institute: A Doctor’s treatment program may be too tough, some say. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. December 18, 1987a, 1987: A12.
  4. Bissell L, Royce JE. Ethics for Addiction Professionals. Center City, Minnesota: Hazelden; 1987.
  5. Addiction Scientists from the USA: LeClair Bissell. In: Edwards G, ed. Addiction: Evolution of a Specialist Field. 1 ed: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated; 2002:408.
  6. Durcanin C. The suicides at Ridgeview Institute: Staff members didn’t believe Michigan doctor was suicidal. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. December 18, 1987, 1987: A8.
  7. Ricks WS. Ridgeview Institute loses $1.3 million in suit over suicide. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. October 11, 1987, 1987: A1.
  8. King M, Durcanin C. The suicides at Ridgeview Institute: Many drug-using doctors driven to Ridgeview by fear of losing licenses. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. December 18, 1987b, 1987: A1.
  9. Bissell L, Haberman PW. Alcoholism in the Professions. Oxford University Press; 1984.
  10. White W. Reflections of an addiction treatment pioneer. An Interview with LeClair Bissell, MD (1928-2008), conducted January 22, 1997. Posted athttp://www.williamwhitepapers.com. 2011.
  11. Williams c. Health care field chemical dependency threat cited. The Tuscaloosa News. January 16, 1988, 1988: 16.
  12. Schneidman B. The Philosophy of Rehabilitation for Impaired Physicians. The Federal Bulletin: The Journal of Medical Licensure and Discipline. 1995;82(3):125-127.
  13. Peele S. In the Belly of the American Society of Addiction Medicine Beast. The Stanton Peele Addiction Website (accessed March 28, 2014)http://web.archive.org/web/20080514153437/http://www.peele.net/debate/talbott.html.
  14. Ursery S. $1.3M verdict coaxes a deal for doctor’s coerced rehab. Fulton County Daily Report. May 12, 1999b 1999.
  15. Ursery S. I was wrongly held in alcohol center, doctor charges. Fulton Count y Daily Report. April 27, 1999a 1999.
  16. Parker J. George Talbott’s Abuse of Dr. Leon Masters MD (http://medicalwhistleblowernetwork.jigsy.com/george-talbott-s-abuse-of-leon-masters ). Medical Whistelblower Advocacy Network.

Physician Suicide: The Role of Hopelessness, Helplessness and Defeat.

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mllangan1's avatarDisrupted Physician

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Although no reliable statistics yet exist, anecdotal reports suggest a marked rise inphysician suicide in recent years. From the reports I am receiving it is a lot more than the oft cited “medical school class” of 400 per year.

This necessitates an evaluation of predisposing risk factors such as substance abuse and depression, but also requires a critical examination of what external forces may be involved.  What acute and cumulative situational and psychosocial factors are involved in the descent from suicidal ideation to planning to completion?   What makes suicide a potential option for doctors and what acute events precipitate and trigger the final act?

Depression and Substance Abuse no Different from General Population

The prevalence of depression in physicians is close to that of the general population1,2 and, if one looks critically at the evidence based literature, substance abuse in medical professionals approximates that of the…

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