general policy
- Please facilitate our work by completing our referral form directly on our website, or by downloading it and sending it to us via fax or mail. Not having the requested information will render the referral “inadequate” and we will not be able to provide your patient with an appointment.
- Make sure you specify in our referral form whether you want the patient to be seen once for assessment/ opinion or seen AND treated in the context of our multidisciplinary team approach.
- We will be communicating with you in a timely manner regarding our findings via fax, email or surface mail (depending on your preference).
we do not
- Take patients from ER or without a family doctor
- Take over their opioid prescribing unless to titrate opioids less than 250 mg of MED, provided the referring family physician signs an Opioid Agreement Form agreeing to take back the patient and continue prescribing medications
- Titrate opioids in patients who exceed the above dose, are in multiple opioid medications, or need methadone or suboxone
- Prescribe Medical Cannabis, though we screen patients who may be candidates and refer to appropriate facilities
- See patients who are under concomitant treatment by other pain clinics or see multiple consultants simultaneously
- See patients whose lawyer requested that the FP makes a referral to PWC
- See patients with pelvic pain including interstitial cystitis as we do not have expertise on this or pelvic floor physiotherapy.
- See patients who have exhausted all treatment modalities, have been seen in multiple pain clinics, and the information forwarded allows us to conclude there is nothing we can offer
OPIOID PRESCRIBING POLICIES
- We follow diligently the 2010 Canadian Guideline for Safe and Effective Use of Opioids for the management of Chronic Non Cancer Pain.
- We will offer our opinion regarding appropriateness of long term opioid treatment
- We will titrate/ stabilize the patients if they are already on opioids.
- However, our role is not to “take over long term opioid management”.
- We expect that once the patient is stable, the referring physician will continue to prescribe opioids appropriately if we deem that the patient has a significant biomedical problem that has been shown to respond to opioids.
- For this, we ask that you confirm you will continue to prescribe long term opioids by signing a special form (on our website) or sent to you with your patient[AM1] .
- We undertake to remain accessible to you and follow up with your patients regularly every 6-12 months once they are stable, or earlier if the need arises.
- Please note we do NOT prescribe Medical Marijuana. However, if we deem a patient might be a suitable candidate, we will refer him to a particular clinic with which we collaborate.
- Also note we are NOT Methadone prescribers. While we assess abuse risk in cases where we are contemplating prescribing opioids, we do NOT treat pharmacologically opioid addicted patients.