Sicko "Pain Management Centers" (Miami: insurance, school, legal)

[harry chickpea]

South Florida is always on the cutting edge of bad taste and the extremes of society. A couple of years ago I could pick up the New Times or City Link and see the various prostitutes advertising about as openly as in the Las Vegas yellow pages. I picked up copies last week and was stunned to see the number of "Pain Clinics" that have cropped up. As big boys and girls, we all know that these are nothing more than legal drug pushers. I'm beginning to wonder if Miami and Ft. Lauderdale are the new Sodom and Gomorrah.

It seems to have come to "Oh durn, I stubbed my toe! I need some oxi-con and a hooker. Guess I'll go to south Florida."

Comments?

[fauve]

Great topic! I have wondered about this too. Sounds like a great undercover investigation for FDLE to tackle.

[jhlcomp]

This is nothing new. Years ago I was going to a diet clinic. I hadn't gone back for a year and when I did I was stunned by the patients in the waiting room. Come to find out that the doctor had expanded his business to a pain mgr center.

[Sharkey514]

Is there any regulation regarding location for these centers? I know of two located a few blocks away from the kids' school -- also of one located in a strip mall a few doors down from the dance class. The cops are often parked in the lot near the pain center. With the way things are going, expect more of these centers to pop up...BTW, do most insurance plans cover this?

[Frances Erna]

I am student at FIU in Miami, majoring in psychology, and I am currently writing a paper on prescription drug abuse. I was planning on researching about the topic of pain clinics and how it comes that patients receive drugs that easy, but it seems like there is nothing to find about this problem! Is the system so corrupt that no journals criticize what is going here?