PAIN PATIENTS PROTEST OBAMACARE
EFFECT ON OKLAHOMA MEDICAID



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AMERICAN PAIN INSTITUTE NEWS
Roland, Oklahoma

By Sandi Walters
479-459-4308
sewketeer@aol.com

July 28, 2011



(ROLAND, OKLAHOMA) - A suicide watch has been put into effect by Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D., Baptist Medical Missionary and Medical Director, of the Wellness Clinic of Roland, in Roland, Oklahoma. Chronic pain patients on Medicaid are no longer able to get their badly needed pain medications filled because of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), known commonly as Obamacare. Governor Fallin, who has the power to waive the damaging regulations for chronic pain patients in her state, has refused to do what many other governors have done across the country, make the PPACA null and void in Oklahoma.

"If only Governor Fallin would waive the legislation, my poor patients could get their medications once again," states Dr. Myers, also the Founder & President of the pain treatment advocacy group, the American Pain Institute (API). "We are witnessing a modern day human tragedy in Oklahoma."

Medicaid patients received a letter in May stating, "Effective July 1, 2011, prescriptions will be compensable only if the prescriber has an active contract with OHCA (Oklahoma Health Care Authority)." However, finding a doctor who prescibes scheduled, class II narcotic medications, such as oxycontin, morphine, fentanyl patches, percocet, oxycodone, etc., in Oklahoma is very diffcult, if not impossible. Too many physicians in Oklahoma, like other states, refuse to prescribe pain medications because of the fear of losing their medical licenses. The DEA continues their relentless pursuit of physicians who treat chronic pain patients. State medical boards, along with the DEA and other law enforcement agencies, continue to blame these treating physicians for supplying the narcotic prescription drugs sold illegaly on the streets.

"My Medicaid patients are poor and just don't have the money to pay for their costly medications," states Dr. Myers, who tearfully remembers a similiar situaton for chronic pain patients in Fort Smth, Arkansas several years ago. "I had multiple suicides in my practice around a deacade ago when the top two chronic pain patient providers had their DEA certificates and medical licenses revoked by the state medical board. I'm afraid that unless Governor Fallin issues a waiver soon, the same thing will happen again in Oklahoma, only in greater numbers."

For more information contact Sandi Walters at 479-459-4308; e-mail: sewketeer@aol.com or Dr. Myers at 918-503-6235 or 662-247-3364; e-mail: JuneteenthDOC@yahoo.com; web sites: www.AmericanPaininstitute.org or www.WellnessClinicofRoland.com.

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