My girlfriend is in exactly this situation. She has terminal pain from a Whipple and every step of the way the onus is on her to provide evidence that she isn't a drug-seeker. And there are not clear success criterion. Pharmacists can (and have) arbitrarily decide not to fill her prescription, leaving her without pain meds suddenly and unexpectedly (ie baseline pain returns + withdrawal symptoms).
Illinois won't allow sending pain scripts any more, so we have to go to the hospital to pick it up every month. They won't allow you to fill it more than a single day before you need it, and many pharmacies won't have the total number of pills prescribed in stock. If you accept a partial fill - you forego the remainder. Getting the doctors AND insurance (either of which will likely block it) to understand you had to do a partial fill and thus issue your refill before 30 days is a Sisyphean task.
All this means if the pharmacy at the hospital doesn't have enough Morphine on hand to fill her one month description the day we pick it up - we have 24 hours to play Pharmacy Whack-a-mole trying to find one that both does have enough pills and won't just arbitrarily decide to say no. Even better - while sometimes you can call ahead and ask, often they are afraid you are probing for large supplies with intent to rob them, so they won't always tell you if they have it in stock.
It's a huge pain in the ass with multiple able-bodied family members in her corner. I can't even fucking imagine how torturous this whole process is for someone in her situation without that kind of help.
Illinois won't allow sending pain scripts any more, so we have to go to the hospital to pick it up every month. They won't allow you to fill it more than a single day before you need it, and many pharmacies won't have the total number of pills prescribed in stock. If you accept a partial fill - you forego the remainder. Getting the doctors AND insurance (either of which will likely block it) to understand you had to do a partial fill and thus issue your refill before 30 days is a Sisyphean task.
All this means if the pharmacy at the hospital doesn't have enough Morphine on hand to fill her one month description the day we pick it up - we have 24 hours to play Pharmacy Whack-a-mole trying to find one that both does have enough pills and won't just arbitrarily decide to say no. Even better - while sometimes you can call ahead and ask, often they are afraid you are probing for large supplies with intent to rob them, so they won't always tell you if they have it in stock.
It's a huge pain in the ass with multiple able-bodied family members in her corner. I can't even fucking imagine how torturous this whole process is for someone in her situation without that kind of help.