For Prescribers - Switlaski Consulting

If You or Your Team Prescribe Opioids or Medical Marijuana You Are at Risk

The new prescribing laws for the treatment of acute and chronic pain for minors and adults are in place to help you and your patient prevent opioid dependence and, ultimately, drug addiction and/or death. Yet, every day, in courtrooms across America, prescription opioids are now the leading basis for drug malpractice lawsuits across the country. This accounts for 25% of drug-related medical malpractice litigation and ends in thousands of verdicts against doctors. The basis for their claim? "No one told us they were addictive." If your name is on the bottle, YOU ARE AT RISK.

FACT: The CDC Guidelines, and one-page informed consent and controlled substance agreements required by the state are not enough to protect you in a court of law.

According to Pain News Network, "Although the guideline is voluntary and only intended for primary care physicians treating non-cancer pain, many pain patients have been forcibly tapered to lower doses, cutoff entirely or even abandoned by their doctors – all under the guise of preventing addiction and overdoses." You need to INFORM patients, MONITOR treatment, & DOCUMENT everything. With the Switalski Informed Consent Documents, you'll get all the tools and information you need to put protocols in place to mitigate culpability.

For Prescribers - Switlaski Consulting - opiod-crisis

Get the Protocols You Need to Mitigate Civil Liability and Treat Patients Effectively

Learn about the current legislation and how it affects your treatment plan.
Get access to hundreds of customizable treatment forms and the proper way to inform, monitor, and support your patients with a comprehensive treatment plan. Get the infrastructure to succeed including: legal measures, treatment options, and how to identify controlled substance misuse and abuse.

It truly is possible to balance patient care and pain management, while avoiding opioid addictions that can lead to civil and criminal responsibility.

For Prescribers - Switlaski Consulting - pills

Consultation Services Available for Your Practice

Provide speaking engagements for employers' treatment systems, risk evaluation and liability/culpability mitigation strategies, current legislation, evidence-based best practices, case law, and more.

Provide ad hoc consulting ("round tables") on current treatment systems, protocols, informed consent/controlled substance agreements, patient flow/algorithms, risk stratification, and more.

Provide documents and protocols including an editable controlled substance agreement, policy suggestions, adolescent/pediatric controlled substance agreements, parental consent, and all associated fact sheets, refill sheets, and more pursuant to the attached proposal. Documents and protocols licensed for use by all members and legally associated, registered, license and/or who pay membership to affiliated organizations.

Review and cooperatively edit current/existing Controlled Substance Policies/Controlled Substance Agreements (informed consent agreements related to the prescribing of controlled substances) or other similarly named documents already in existence and/or use, family history and associated office workflow related to the use of controlled substance agreements.

Provide timely distribution of recommended best practices for compliance and risk mitigation strategies Controlled Substance Agreement templates for general practitioners, juvenile/minor/incapacitated individuals, acute care (when available) and dental templates.

Corresponding protocols, refill sheets, and supporting documentation and reference materials are also provided. All documents are templates and are intended for the use of organizations to be amended for use and unlimited distribution within the client's organization and its providers only.

Webcast and off-site services available
All presentations are CME accredited
Discount for multiple services

ROUND TABLE DISCOVERY SESSIONS & TAILORED ACTION PLANS

Round table discussions are an informative, solution-oriented, and cooperative way to create systems specific to your organization. Why recreate systems on your own from the ground-up when the majority of the structure has been done for you?

Open and frank discussions with your team about opioid addiction, your current procedures, and how everyone on your team has a responsibility not only to do no harm but also to prevent harm is important. Your team will leave the event with a new perspective on America's health epidemic and the role each of us plays in changing how we think about this preventative disease.

Round table discussions are informative, engaging, and fun for everyone who attends. They provide the ideal setting to discuss infrastructure solutions.

How Can Round Table Discussions Benefit Me?

Round table discussions answer these common questions and more:
What are the mandatory screening questions to ask BEFORE prescribing a controlled substance?
When does the screening start?
What information should I use to engage in risk stratification?
Is a controlled substance already involved?
Does a practice algorithm already exist?
When do we require a drug screen, or a prescription drug monitoring program check?
How do we manage medication-assisted treatments?
Who do we screen, and when?
What other monitoring strategies reduce red flags and other legal risks?
When do I utilize the informed consent treatment plan?
What constitutes legal consent? What are the mandatory issues that must be covered for an informed consent / controlled substance agreement to meet best practices for truly informing my patient and obtaining consent?
How do I handle refills?
How do I manage patient non-compliance or inability to comply with the treatment plan?
When do I need to make referrals for the patient? What resources are available to me?
How do I mitigate medical abandonment issues?
When is it okay to terminate a patient from my practice?

Call Jodi today to talk about your consultation options: (586) 493-9000

Risk Mitigation and Best Practices for Medical/ Dental Compliance Audits

Step 1: Full Compliance and Best Practices Audits That Meet and Exceed DEA, State Licensing

Boards, and Other Internal Review by Enforcement Agencies

Confidential, evidence-based, proven, and thorough, the client is provided a summary of observations, strengths/weaknesses, recommendations for improvement, along with the documentation that forms the foundation for a successful compliance audit in the future. The opportunity exists for implementation consulting and following up. For a fraction of what you would pay a lawyer to represent you in court, you can take preventive measures to mitigate harm to your patient, your practice, and your liabilities.

Step 2: Implementation Phase

With a background in treatment and medicine, the recommendations following audit are scientifically based, multi-disciplinary, and comprehensive. Content provided, when implemented, not only mitigates liability but ensures surviving an audit as well.

“I have worked with hospital associations as large as 6000+ practitioners (at the Western Connecticut Medical Group) to solo practitioner offices around the country. These protocols and practice tools work to effectively inform your patients of the risk of addiction (PA 246 and more), create treatment systems for your practice (PA 247 and 248), meet and exceed current regulatory and legislative mandates which currently provide no direction on the process or “how to”.”

The audit will include: office review, interviews, random file/EMR audits, documentation, staff and prescriber education, and more.

Examples of Audit Content Include:

Surviving the DEA audit or diversion investigation
Having a designee
Knowledge and application of the Controlled Substance Act
Being prepared with documents to avoid culpability or further investigation
Knowing what to audit and when in the office
What records and forms need to be documented for chain of custody when receiving controlled substances in the office? Handling waste or excess controlled substances? Missing controlled substances?
Rules for prescription pad and prescription documentation
UDS, Pill Counts, PDMP, Aberrant Behaviors, Sleep, Mental Health Monitoring, MEDs – what, why, and how? Achieving the most from your monitoring strategies while mitigating risk
Specific compliance rules for refilling a prescription
Exceeding the statutory requirements of PA 246, 247, and 248 to achieve best practices for informing your patient, monitoring your patient for signs of disease, and documenting that you have done so!
UDS Standards of Care and Best Practices
UDS as a therapeutic tool – a positive drug test, now what?!
Removing termination language and treating the disease state (or be sued)
Documentation to support and justify the medical necessity
Red Flags and your response
Understanding the overlap between best practices and surviving an audit or investigation
Detail how to inform and obtain legal consent - for Michigan, this includes using the Start Talking form which does not prevent liability
Start breaking down processes for risk stratification, patient history, and more - consider where to begin and when to begin the information gathering.
A discussion of the necessity of objective and subjective information gathering as part of due diligence; how to document risk scores and move within each category
What are the best assessment tools to use? ACES, PHQ-9 and more
Shifting the paradigm from informed consent/controlled substance agreements/pain management contracts to treatment plans and patient algorithms to reduce risk
What language to use
How to employ in your practice (successfully eating the 5-pound burger)
Measuring the efficacy of treatment plan and creating reasonable expectations and investment by patient
Procedural and form components of informed consent – going beyond Start Talking
Various types and use, the necessity of more
Explaining risks v. benefits monitoring for treatment plan compliance
Best practices for compliance monitoring - doing your due diligence
Achieving consent - 1x/year is never enough and the impact of the multi-million dollar verdict
The interaction of informed consent and office protocols - creating systems that work
Termination and medical abandonment when prescribing controlled substances - why the treatment plan serves multiple purposes

Given the current activity by LARA, civil litigators, and the Attorney General, and all the questions and requests for information, there is a significant need to update systems to meet the requirements for best practices and the good faith effort standards. Most practices are severely out of date, or in some cases, policies are non-existent. This exposes you to legal liabilities.

Your area of expertise is medicine. Mine is risk mitigation and the law.

This is an expanding reality for each of you, whether you like it or not. The fairness is simply not in issue. By learning and implementing some of these tools, you can feel secure in your practice and the therapeutic outcomes for patients. Isn’t that the goal?

Call (586) 493-9000 to Speak with Jodi About Reviewing Your Compliance Policies and Practices

Decide Today to Make Protecting Your Patients and Your Practice Your Priority

You chose this profession to help people. You took an oath to do no harm. Now let me help you do both.

We’re in the middle of a health epidemic and we need to do something about it. It’s time to BE THE CHANGE. You need a champion who has been successful from every angle of the law. A national expert. A Warrior.

If you’re ready to join thousands of other prescribers doing their part to stop the epidemic at its core, call me. I can set you on the path to success.

Former Judge
Honored Attorney
National Expert in Substance Abuse, Mental Health, & Violence
Notable Keynote Speaker on Opioid Crisis, Addiction, & Prevention

The Legislation Around Controlled Substances and Legalized Marijuana is Always Changing. Let Me Help You Stay Informed and Stay Protected. Call (586) 493-9000 Now!