Pain Contracts as Policy: A Good Idea?
On April 27 the Center for Practical Bioethics convened a broad spectrum of pain management professionals to consider the utility and the ethics of pain contracts or agreements. The meeting focused on professional, patient and policy issues around physician use of contracts to prescribe opioids and other pain medications.The Center will produce a policy brief from comments delivered during this gathering and the November issue of the American Journal of Bioethics will be devoted to the concept of pain contracts.
In a three part series starting April 30 The Bioethics Channel will feature interviews with participants in this program. In this edition, Drs. Scott Fishman and Richard Payne discuss the professional impact of pain contracts.
Pain Contracts: Great Good or Great Harm?, Scott Fishman, MD, University of California-Davis, April 30, 7 minutes 10 seconds
Pain Contracts: Unintended Consequences, Richard Payne, MD, Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life, April 30, 6 minutes 24 seconds
Labels: DEA and pain policy, pain policy; medical ethics; bioethics
posted by Practical Bioethics at
1:01 PM
1 Comments:
Of course, the initial development of a formal doctor-patient relationship does represent the development of a unwritten contract. This contract establishes that each party needs the other party to be honest,trustworthy and directed to meet the contract's goal which would be for the betterment of the patient. However, it is interesting that the contract can be terminated in an unequal manner. The patient can abandon the physician at any time the patient desires. The physician can at no time and under virtually no circumstances abandon the patient. This inequality is understandable but it does put additional pressure on the doctor to create some further contract emphasis regarding the responsibilities of the patient in this doctor-patient relationship. This may be of particular significance in pain management where assuring patient behavior and compliance may be the rationale for developing a formal written patient contract. ..Maurice.
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