Please Support Local Doctor, Says Letter to the Editor
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Humboldt County has a couple of medical crises we are all aware of – the shortage of doctors and the opioid crisis, and now an action by the California Medical Board could make both situations much worse. They are accusing Dr. Connie Basch of negligence for continuing to prescribe opioids for legacy patients living with chronic pain.
Dr. Basch has been practicing in Humboldt County for most of the past two decades. She studied at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. At Full Circle Center for Integrative Medicine she practices holistic medicine. She has lectured nationally on pain management and received three awards for quality including one as top regional doctor of 2014.
Dr. Basch has helped many people who have taken opioids. Her pain clinic serves people who need help to taper off, people who’ve been prescribed opioids by out-of-the-area medical facilities that are ill-equipped to help the transition, and legacy patients who truly need these drugs to be able to live a functional life. She helps people in the manner she judges best for the good of the individual.With legacy patients her approach runs counter to the strict guidelines of the California Medical Board, and now they intend to shut down her practice. As a community we need to stand up for her – for her integrity and good medical judgement. Please voice your support for Dr. Basch, especially if you have personal experience with her care or know of others who have been helped.Please write the California Medical Board, 2005 Evergreen Street, Suite 1200, Sacramento, Ca 95815. They need to hear from us now, requesting that the hearing be held locally so we may stand before them to voice our support and tell our stories.Lynn RobbinsEureka
Humboldt County has a couple of medical crises we are all aware of – the shortage of doctors and the opioid crisis, and now an action by the California Medical Board could make both situations much worse. They are accusing Dr. Connie Basch of negligence for continuing to prescribe opioids for legacy patients living with chronic pain.
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Connie Basch has been a pillar of our community and a stellar doctor, I will most certainly
write a letter in her defense. Our community can not do without her!
Not enough information. The lack of any details regarding exactly how she feels to comply with the California medical board standards is very suspicious.
Here is the document with the particulars. http://www2.mbc.ca.gov/PDL/document.aspx?path=%5cDIDOCS%5c20190508%5cDMRAAAGL1%5c&did=AAAGL190508155020642.DID&licenseType=A&licenseNumber=51185%20#page=1
It’s not complete information because it’s not a news article, nor a press release. It’s a letter to the editor. Read the linked state document. People showing up to support her isn’t going to help one bit. Read the document.
Check out my post, https://doctorsofcourage.org/connie-basch-md-takes-fight-to-state-medical-board/. The attack on this doctor is government-driven because she is treating and healing the expendable populations. Be careful with your judgement. One day YOU will be expendable.
All information you might want to read is on her website: http://www.fullcircle.med. Connie sees 1400 patients, works over 100 hours per week, and, as a sole practitioner, pays herself $10 an hour. She is totally focused on providing the best care for her patients. I recall the first time I went to her; I was amazed that she spent two hours with me. Then, after that, my visits lasted from 45 minutes to an hour. Some other doctors felt it made them look bad, and they were correct. It is no accident that she is beloved, and admired, by our Northern Humboldt communties.
~thank you for this letter. I’ll write a letter and send it Registered mail. I’ll also include the following quote:
“The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now-if we do a great job
on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we lower that by perhaps 10 or 15%.”
-Bill Gates-a Ted conference at Long Beach, California-Sept 27, 2010
(verbatim!)
🕯🌳Dont know her but from what was written she sounds like she’s trying to help not hender the addiction process.
Did you read the complaint document. That paints a different picture. http://www2.mbc.ca.gov/PDL/document.aspx?path=%5cDIDOCS%5c20190508%5cDMRAAAGL1%5c&did=AAAGL190508155020642.DID&licenseType=A&licenseNumber=51185%20#page=1
If you really understand what is going on in this country, you would see through this paper trail. Or you are a government troll, trying to reinforce the propaganda. Check out my post on DoC: https://doctorsofcourage.org/connie-basch-md-takes-fight-to-state-medical-board/ and learn the truth. We are in a police state trying to control the population through legal genocide.
Thank you for your wonderful post.
Search for the last name “Basch”, select the May 8, 2019 entry.
http://www2.mbc.ca.gov/PDL/Search.aspx
I’m a chronic pain patient and former medical transcriptionist. That is a shit load of opioids and benzodiazepines Dr. Basch prescribed for the patients identified in this complaint. Dr. Basch is not enforcing her own narcotic agreements. Makes my 2-3 Tylenol with codeine a day look like candy. I do not think the medical board is doing anything wrong. We need to do whatever it takes to allow people who are following the rules to continue to get their necessary meds to allow them to live a somewhat fulfilling life.
Read the post on DoC: https://doctorsofcourage.org/connie-basch-md-takes-fight-to-state-medical-board/. Stop believing the propaganda. Even with only Tylenol with codeine, the government considers you a drug addict and your doctor a pusher. We have to stop this brainwashing.
Chronic pain is not helped by long term opioids. The body adjusts and needs higher and higher doses. If this doctor has found a way to regulate the pain and not just escalate the use of drugs, then she knows something that the medical board does not.
You need to read the hyperlinked information. That is not what Dr. Basch was doing.
You are correct about your body adjusting, hydrocodone stopped working for me after 6 months or so. It had been offered by my rheumatologist as an alternative to the Tylenol with codeine that I had taken intermittently over the preceding 20 years for migraine headaches (after a small stroke and EEG diagnosed me). What I do is when I start noticing pain meds are not helping as they have, I take a “drug holiday” where I suffer on less and use heating pads and do very little so that I can let my body detox off it. I do NOT have withdrawal symptoms. I have been on opioids for 9 years and have been able to maintain on the same 2-3 pills a day. I rarely take a third. I also had to learn to take frequent breaks when doing chores. Some days I am not good at it and have to take another half a pill or a full pill depending. I will also say leaving Humboldt County to a dryer, warmer climate is very helpful and I am hoping someday we will be able to move (after my elderly mother passes away, and my husband retires).
Also anyone who says long term opioid use does not help chronic pain is not a chronic pain patient. It is the only way I can participate in life.
~smart woman for taking a ‘drug holiday’. Our bodies tell us when too much is too much, we just don’t listen – or, were not taught this.
One other thing, about Tylenol . . . acetaminophen toxicity is the most common cause of acute liver failure.
Acetaminophen is the active ingredient in Tylenol. It is also found in many other over-the-counter medications and in prescription drugs. Acetaminophen is in Actifed, Alka-Seltzer Plus, Benadryl, Co-Gesic, Contac, Excedrin, Fioricet, Lortab, Midrin, Norco, Percocet, Robitussin, Sedapap, Sinutab, Sudafed, TheraFlu, Unisom PM Pain, Vick’s Nyquil and DayQuil, Vicodin, and Zydone.
People taking “just one aspirin” per day —ditto. IMHumboldtO.
The People’s Chemist online is something you may want to check into. I’m sure there are many natural ‘helps’. -No one told us. We got bamboozled into pills. Don’t get me wrong, if had pain, PAIN, i wouldn’t hesitate. I’d swallow a Bag Pharma drug.
There are plenty of pain patients out there that disprove your statement – patients on high dosages who have not increased and are stable doing well. And there are are a number of scientific studies that prove that. People are different – many people are low metabolizers and need a higher dose to function.
It works for me!!!
It depends on your ailment, & im living proof that long term use combined with cannabis makes you not go up on dose which helps not get addicted. Tons of research on it happening lately, the opiate&cannabis receptors are right next to each other in the brain.
I take breaks from the opiates&dose up on thc when i do.
6 years and im still on same super low dose of opiate.
Connie is an amaxing asset. Docs have to go through a 6 month complete background check by the DEA before being allowed to prescribe certain opiates now. Even local ambulance emts say they cant ger enuf to help folks with broken bones/backs on thr often 2 hour ride to hospital. Ridiculous!
All its doing is making people seek out less safe pills&actual heroin off the streets. Which makes for more addiction&death.
Actually, you are right, but not based on the five stories told in the complaint and your own bias. Dr. Basch DOES know a lot that the medical board probably doesn’t. She teaches myriad modalities for pain that include, but certainly not limited to, meditation, pacing, exercise (when appropriate and possible), acupuncture, tai chi, Qi Gong, and so many others, instead of just giving up or throwing pills at someone. The patients in the complaint were cherry-picked and the most extreme of her pain patients. Dr. Basch did not PUT them on these meds, they came to her already on them. The five patients, for whom I have the utmost empathy, represent roughly 0.003125% of her patient care load. She is unparalleled in her capacity to care and learn patient histories, seek out specialists, and search for “zebras” when others are only assuming the hoofbeats they are hearing are horses. Any community would be lucky to have a doctor of her caliber, it’s a miracle that Humboldt, this tiny rural community, does.
Whatever “research” says opioids don’t help with chronic pain, long term, never asked me for my experience! 5 years on 15mg of oxycodone allows me to work and function after I get home too. Dr. Connie has been a lifesaver. Unless you are her patient, you have no idea what you are talking about. Dr. Connie takes on the most complicated pain management patients that other doctors avoid. 5 patients, (out of 1600) who came to her on higher doses prescribed by other physicians, were not tapered low enough or fast enough to satisfy a medical board without a single chronic pain management specialist listed. This is complete and total BS and does not allow for the patient centered, shared decision making approach Connie utilizes. This “accusation” from the medical board also doesn’t take into consideration Connie’s relationship with said patients that allows her to understand the risks vs benefits of forced tapering of certain patients. Please educate yourself on how 80% of heroin users are former patients who were prescribed opioids and then had them taken away. When you force taper someone who has been on high opioid doses for many years, such as the patients in the “accusation”, they often go to street drugs or suicide as their answer. These guidelines are taking away a doctor’s obligation to do what is right for an INDIVIDUAL patient based on assessment of risk vs benefit. Do you really believe Connie should pay for another doctor’s prescribing? Should she pay for the marketing that stated long acting opiates where not addictive? Should chronic pain patients have to suffer because every PCP in Humboldt is scared to death to actually help them lest they come under this sort of scrutiny? This is a complex issue. Comments without full understanding of the issues are ignorant and contribute to the injustice. Connie is awesome, not perfect. The only mistake she made was not charting from a CYA perspective. She has always been too busy helping her patients to spend hours defending her decisions in her notetaking. Try working 100 hrs a week and see how much extra energy you have for tedious charting “just in case”. Ask any medical provider that same question. As a healthcare provider myself, who only sees 8 patients a day, I can attest to the idea I would have to spend an extra 2 hours per day just charting. Our system is working to produce doctors who have to spend more time charting to prevent a lawsuit or sanctions than they spend helping patients and keeping current on the ever changing landscape of medicine. Connie is one of the few who actually do keep up and also on the alternatives to traditional medicine.
Does anyone besides me understand that cutting chronic pain patients off from the meds that allow them some relief from their suffering is how heroin addicts get created? I’m blessed with low pain levels, but I can tell you that if I were suffering because my meds got cut off, I would go to the streets to find relief!
You should probably read the legal complaint before commenting.
That is why most are probably on herion. Started with the opiods then got taken away.
As a patient with chronic pain in my shoulders and elbows I am not happy with authorities trying to shut down doctors who prescribe opioids. My last doctor left the area to be closer to family. She prescribed a small amount of opioids for me each month and they allowed me to sleep when my pain flared to the point of distress. When she left, my new doctor told me he would never prescribe opioids for me. He prescribed NSAIDS which I believe are more inherently dangerous than opioids. When they didn’t help, he then prescribed corticosteroids which I know are more dangerous. I told him I suffered from open angle glaucoma and was taking medication for it, he assured me that the steroids would not interact with my medication. While he was correct in saying that they wouldn’t interact, they did counteract my medication. The pressure in my eyes which had been under control now increased by an alarming amount. After doing some research of my own, I discovered that corticosteroids do in fact increase the pressure in ones eyes. I had to stop using the steroids. They had some effect, but not enough to risk further use. He did relent and give me a small amount of opioids which lasted me quite awhile, but told me he would not prescribe any more. He told me he wouldn’t because he was worried what his colleagues would say. My need is regular, but not daily, so the risk of me becoming addicted is slight. I am 72 years old and have been living with this pain for a couple of years now. I had relief for a while and now I’m back in pain. I’m sure there must be some truth to the “opioid crisis”, but it should not be used to hunt down doctors who are simply trying to treat their patients with chronic pain.
I agree. My husband is a veteran which is government run. They give him alot.
Government started this then take away. What happened to the pain pills people used to take. I think maybe not strong enough. My concern is why do they have to put Tylenol in them. Tylenol in can’t be good to take every day.
I can’t even count how many times I wished I had just ONE valium. P1 gets handfuls!
All five of these patients were on incredible doses of controlled substances, powerful medications known for their abuse potential. According to the hyperlinked document, all five of these patients had incidents where “extra” was given, or when refills were authorized early.
All five patients should have been cut off summarily unless they agreed to go to inpatient rehab, since all five appeared to be drug seekers and what doctors would normally refer to as “train wrecks”! It is surprising that none of these patients expired while under this physician’s care.
Pain Management is often a process of continuous addiction management, where the physician spends all his or her time writing prescriptions, and keeping records to justify those prescriptions. It must be very difficult to juggle professional responsibility with the care of people who just want more and more…
All Pain Management patients should have to take regular serum drug tests to determine whether they are taking the drugs prescribed in the prescribed amounts, and whether the patient is adding non-prescribed drugs or other substances to the mix.
Pain Management is a dicey field and should only be attempted by physicians who wish to risk their licenses to treat patients such as P1-5, all of whom should have been cut off.
The failure to recomend these patients to detox and rehab, and the failure to effectively limit excessive access to dangerous amounts of medication, will most probably result in the suspension of this physician’s license.
I predict that you will not be seeing this physician in her office, in the near future.
because somewhere we all agree thst the goverment not ourselves or doctors should decide how much pain we should suffer based upon what ? who are you or anyone else to tell someone to suck it up and live in constant pain. and people wonder why people are killing themselves and each other . pain is real no amount of telling yourself something doesnt hurt makes real pain go away. but then i guess people are so foucsed on trying to tell others how to live their lifes and control so much of others lives thst they never stop to put their shoes on and try walking in them. i mean it is their life style that gives the. the pain right ? heaven forbid in a free country that we have the right to decide wither or not we want to live in pain or what if anyhing we want to put into our bodies.
Apparently, endless amounts of really great Smack are available in Humboldt. No prescription required. Enjoy!
Prescription pain meds are often paid for by insurance, Medicare, Medi-Cal, the VA etc. This is why people get hooked on them.
I was in “Pain Management”, most of my adult life, strung out on MS Contin, 500 mg/day, and Xanax, 6 mg/day, and 10 mg Hydrocodone for over 10 years, until I went to detox/rehab, on my own volition, got clean and stayed that way. I also smoked pot for 40 years, and quit, and used to drink crazy amounts, until I quit that too, nearly 30 years ago.
Pain Management is supposed to control the patient’s pain, not to provide excessive amounts of dangerous drugs so the patient will be “happy”! Many, many physicians keep their waiting rooms full by handing out whatever the patients request, and many patients end up completely wrecked all the time, lose their jobs, get divorced, and develop serious health problems.
Pain Management should be linked to “lifestyle management”, should include education as a requirement, and all PM patients should be regularly tested by blood draw, until the physician is confident that the prescribed drugs are not being abused or augmented.
I am not a doctor, but I have seen the wreckage of “pain management” firsthand.
Life is better clean and sober. Try it!
The governing body, in the case of these five patients, would be quite justified in taking this physician’s license.
I predict that the “war on Opiates” will continue, and that this is not the only local physician being investigated.
You’re a drug addict , that’s all you were anyway
I’m in real deal pain every second of my life…
leave responsible doctors alone
OK, that’s very reductionist, very simplistic: I’m a recovering addict/alcoholic/former pain management patient, so, I’m bad, I’m attacking ¥our doctor?
Nobody is attacking anyone, and in my opinion, schedule III and IV drugs should all be over the counter, controlled by the pharmacy in amounts. We should be able to just purchase what we need, including antibiotics, anti-hypertensives and the rest.
In the same manner, the US Government should buy the world’s Heroin production, and just hand it out for free, at centers, as, nasal spray, say, where safe housing, health care, and counseling/rehab/detox and group therapy/job placement services are available if desired.
The crazy MD/Pharmacy/Control Board model we have in this country needs to be changed!
Oxycontin, on the other hand, a drug designed specifically to addict, should never be prescribed for ordinary pain syndromes, and, probably, Methadone should not be used with Narcotics, ever.
This is a complex problem, but I agree, the few physicians we do have, should not have to be inspected by the government in the manner cited above. We should reduce harm, and allow physicians to practice as they see fit, ethically, without hurting anyone.
I understand that you want your meds, but I am not the enemy.
Thanks for your comment.
Entropic Empath / If you’ve never met this doctor, then you have no reason even commenting. You are wrong. She will not lose her license.
You know very little about what is at stake here. It can be very dangerous to cut back on the dosages of elderly patients who have been on pain medication at high levels, for several decades. Which should our priority be? Punishing them, because we are a puritanical, condescending, judgmental population, or having empathy, and protecting their health? People in Western European countries have evolved past this moronic, illogical nonsense.
Corinne Vivian Basch, MD, is a poster child for pill-pushing doctors and a darling of Big Pharma. It is a total wonder that she did not kill one or more of these five patients with all those powerful drugs.
Her license to practice medicine needs to be cancelled, period.
Walt Wilson / Such BS. If anyone doctors office that should be investigated, it should be Fortuna Family Medical Group, not Dr. Basch.
I suspect some of these folx have yet to experience constant and excruciating pain. The bulk of remaing chronic pain patients are exhaustively monitored. I submit to monthly unrinalysis, pill counts, and still don’t get a “minimum effective dose.” A few commenters have the illusion that ‘X DOSE’=’Y REACTION.’ NOPE. Some of us are genetically predisposed with an allele, or gene variant that make rapid metabolizers. It is called the Val158Met Variant at chromosome 22. Bottom line ‘one size does not fit all.’ Verbatim from a local legislator who shall remain unnamed, for now.
I was injured in a auto accident while employed by Humboldt County. Dr Basch helped me recover along with Dr Cataldo. I recieved excellent care from both, and hope others are fortunate to receive the same knowledgable, caring, and professional help I received. My wish would be for more doctors as loving and giving as these Professional Doctors who go far beyond what is expected.
The main problem in “Pain Management” is not the physician avoiding the review board, the main problem is fear. Doctors fear losing their license, but patients fear not having enough pills, and, they fear withdrawal!
Withdrawal from Opiates is extremely uncomfortable, but I am willing to bet that nearly every Opiate Addict has experienced withdrawal at least once.
Withdrawal takes 3-4 days, but creating an intractable Opiate Addict can be the result of many years of allowing dosages to increase. In fact, having a few patients who take massive amounts of controlled substances, can destroy a “Pain Management” practice for all the patients as well as the physician!
If you are upset at the idea that this physician could lose the ability to practice, think about where you are in the “Pain Management” paradigm! If you daily use narcotics, and have for a long time, then what are your concerns? Are you getting better? Are you just being “maintained”? Has everything been done that is possible to diagnose and improve your condition? Do you want to be merely “maintained”?
Using painkillers continuously becomes a process of avoiding withdrawal as a primary focus. The end.
Almost every “pain management” patient will end up having to give up the prescriptions, eventually.
Older patients tend to be the most dependent, and the least likely to change. Many ER visits result from the misuse of Schedule IV, Schedule III, and Schedule II drugs, and the costs associated with treating these patients are huge.
Physicians often feel caught between the medical indications, the law, and the expressed “needs” of the patient.
If you are in “pain management” your concerns will focus on obtaining and maintaining a supply of drugs, and you will become a slave to the drugs and the doctor/pharmacy dispensing the drugs.
“Pain Management” should never be about controlling withdrawal, or about maintaining addiction.
There are alternatives, but they are difficult to access, in Humboldt County.
Suffering is never pleasant, but the suffering caused by Opiates, their use and misuse, and the ultimate withdrawal that almost every patient will encounter, can almost always be avoided.
Obviously, those dying, those with life-ending conditions, those with major injuries and surgery, should be prescribed as needed.
Opiates should be used sparingly, temporarily, and cautiously by ordinary patients who are experiencing pain. All patients are warned that the governing bodies, are watching, and that the physician, may have to stop prescribing without warning. In Humboldt, there are few options, but all patients should be advised not to depend on these drugs being continuously available, especially if they are being misprescribed, or commonly misused.
Physician-assisted withdrawal is available. Buprenorphine is useful, but should not be used long term.
Good luck to this physician, and also to her patients.
I predict an interruption of the services of Dr Basch…
And if your services are interrupted, there are several large “Pain Management” groups in Santa Rosa, Napa, Yuba City and Redding.
Detox and Rehab centers are also available, and Redwood Rural has a Suboxone Clinic/Outpatient Rehab.
Those five cases were handpicked and all came to her on those doses.
Five years ago I was lucky enough to become her patient. I was on 500mg of time release morphine a day. She has her pain patients go to a pain group, twice a month to start. We learned an enormous amount about pain and how to deal with. And Connie managed to get met to trust her enough to let my dose be reduced. She always suggested, never told me. And let me go at my own pace. I am now on 20mg time release morphine a day. That’s how good Connie Basch is. That’s how much we need her.
If her license is revoked ers are going to be flooded. Not only with patients with pain unable to get doctors in this county and most not able to travel to other doctors, but also with patients in withdrawal. I hope you’ve never been in withdrawal from opiates but it is awful. I’d rather have the pain.
ER’s are already flooded with “pain” patients, people who have been given meds for long or short periods, and also street addicts who couldn’t score that day, and who are in frank withdrawal… This is an awful waste of the services available, and costs society and social programs like Medicare and Medi-Cal billions…
If you got down from 500mg to 20mg MS Contin, it will be easy to quit, and you should do it now.
Pain management is a terrible trap, just think of all the time you invested in obtaining those drugs. If you attended educational groups, I hope you have been exposed to alternative therapies.
I found I was able to go without drugs, and I feel much better. I don’t go to the doctor once a month, and I no longer need to stand in a pharmacy, ever.
Going without these drugs is difficult, but possible, and your body and brain will adjust.
Good luck!
I have been on pain management for 20 years. My mom and aunt have been clean and sober for over thirty. Do not tell me about addiction and pain. I’ve lived it. I’m dependent on the opiates but not addicted.
My point was Doctor Basch is the only doctor I trusted enough to let lower my dosage. You were right about pain patients being afraid of someone taking their pills. She let me go down, didn’t force me, and that is the point.
I hope you are doing well. It always was a shock to me when some force tried to break the chain of my pill supply, and, it happened many times. If you have a calm, caring physician who knows how to proceed and keep records, you will be fine.
Always be prepared for an interruption, and, in the end, have a plan to escape from pain management, as it ends up being a trap.
Be well, be safe.
Entropic Empath / I am a patient of this physician & I also have chronic pain. As a patient of Ms. Basch, I do not use opiates. You, Empath do not even have any knowledge of Dr. Basch’s practices. I do & I can say this; she has the most in-depth questionnaire out of any doctor that I have ever had in my life. She knows more about me than any other doctor I’ve had in my life. She has the most extensive alternative medicines in her office for all her patients, she also has a massage therapist onsight and an acupuncturist. She is the only doctor that ever offered me alternative pain management. So, when someone makes an assumption about someone they know nothing about, it makes for an ASS out of that individual.
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I suspect the “entropath” is an employee at the local suboxone clinic …