New Opioid Prescribing Law, Did the Legislature Know AZ Only Had 41 Certified Pain Specialists?

I don't believe the Arizona Legislature knew how many certified pain management physicians there were in Arizona when they passed the new Arizona Opioid Prescribing Law. 

Look in the phone book or online for pain management physicians, there's a number of pain doctors in almost every city, pain is big business.

BUT... According to the American Board of Pain Medicine there are only 41 certified pain specialists in the state of Arizona. Studies tell us 100,000,000 American's suffer chronic pain, 1/3rd of us.

Arizona has 7,000,000 people, going by the studies a little over 2,000,000 people in Arizona have chronic pain. For argument sake lets round that down to just 25% of the number of chronic pain patients in Arizona, 500,000. 

Those 41 certified pain specialists in the state of Arizona would need to see a little over 12,000 patients each, or 400 patients a day.

Many web pages including some news outlets like US News  have list to help patients find pain specialists. A Google search for pain specialists give you a US News page "Find Pain Management Specialists | US News Doctors - US News Health" When you look for pain specialists in Flagstaff you get results that say "The U.S. News & World Report Doctor Finder has detailed profiles for 7 pain management specialists near Flagstaff, AZ"

But out of the 7 pain management specialists listed only one is really an American Board of Pain Medicine Certified Pain Specialists John Ledington MD. The same page says Phoenix has 218 pain specialists. In fact the American Board of Pain Medicine only lists 13 Certified Pain Specialists in Phoenix.

WE KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN.....
The really sad thing is that we've been fighting this so called drug war for 40 years. Legislators know or should have know that when you cut off the supply of drugs from one place, someone always picks up the slack.

In the case of opioids the drug cartels picked up the slack and they are really good at their job. Fentanyl is cheap and easy to make, this May The Nebraska State Patrol seized nearly 120 pounds of the drug fentanyl - enough to kill about 26 million people.

The problem with prohibition of any type, alcohol, marijuana, or pain medication is prohibition doesn't work. Reducing the doses of 100,000,000 American's with chronic pain is creating a huge business opportunity for drug cartels or any college chemistry degree. 

Dr Sutera in Bullhead City is NOT a certified pain specialists...


If You're a patient of Dr Sutera email me at leapspeaker@gmail.com