A Voice for His Patients
Dr. Jack Brunner launched his Web site Stoppbmmedco.typepad.com in January of 2007 in an effort to “fight back” against pharmacy benefit management (PBM) companies over what he called “interference with my ability to take care of patients and an inordinate degree of bureaucratic harassment that has not just bothered me but has harmed my patients.”
Over the past few years the Toledo, Ohio-based endocrinologist became increasingly enraged as elderly patients began to show up for their office visits with uncontrolled blood pressure and diabetes because they didn't receive their medications. Why? “Because of the tremendous bureaucratic hassles that these pharmacy benefit managers have layered on to doctor-patient interactions,” Dr. Brunner said.
During the first few weeks of Medicare Part D activation, his office received “outrageous requests for prescription preauthorizations,” Dr. Brunner recalled.
He said that he has reported his concerns and certain case reports to the state pharmacy board, the state insurance board, the Ohio State Medical Association, and to his Congresswoman and his Senators, “and I feel like I'm talking in an empty room.”
On March 11, he posted an 11-item “Pharmacy benefit manager bill of rights for patients.” It starts by noting that “health improvement is the required primary mission of PBM[s]. Cost is secondary, stock market rating is last.”
It also proposes that “forced within drug class substitution is not allowed. If a patient is already on a specific drug within a class of medications, this medication is 'grandfathered.'”
He considers the blog a way to voice his concerns about PBM companies. He currently averages about five visits to the site per day, but he hopes that number will increase. “Maybe some advocacy groups will read my blog, and they'll have similar feelings and take the fight also,” he said. “If they don't, maybe I'm just blowing in the wind, so to speak.”
Dr. Kevin Pho finds reward in “bringing light to issues that I feel are important.” Courtesy Dr. Kevin Pho
Want to Blog? Tips On Getting Started
Dr. Roberts offered these suggestions and observations about medical blogging:
▸ Start a blog with a pseudonym. “Don't tell anybody about it for the first month and see if you like it,” he said. “If you do, keep doing it.”
▸ Don't expect wild popularity. “Most people figure they're going to start a blog and it's going to be the next Instapundit.com or Dailykos.com,” he said. “The fact is, your blog may get a small following like mine has, and that's what you're going to get.”
▸ Writing comedy is hard.
▸ Some readers will willfully misunderstand you if doing so fits their agenda.
▸ Don't expect all commenters to be kind. “The anonymity of sitting at your keyboard and—as one commenter called it—'Tourette typing,' gives people license to say things that they most likely wouldn't ever say to your face and probably shouldn't ever say.”
'Some Dude': Public Health Menace
Readers who visit
November 15, 2004—1:15 a.m.
I work in an emergency department and have noticed that there is one common denominator in the majority of the assaulted patients I treat: They were all assaulted by “Some Dude.” (Also, they were all assaulted for “no reason,” but that's the topic of another rant.) This is true no matter where I work, the time of day, or day of the week.
“Some Dude” has in the last 2 weeks shot my patients; sucker-punched, struck with bottles, beaten them with fists and a golf club (or perhaps the entire set); and pushed my patients down stairs.
Additionally, “Some Dude” has “slipped drugs” into the drinks of, transmitted sexual diseases to, and stolen the medications of my patients.
I have no idea how “Some Dude” is everywhere at once. I suspect he's an evil superhero, though in the current times I cannot completely exclude an Al-Qaeda conspiracy.
I advocate a vigorous police and public-health effort to locate and confine “Some Dude” due to the clear and present danger he represents to the health and welfare of our republic.
Reprinted with permission.