Patient Liaison

[Topshelf]

Good day everyone.

 

I am interested in finding out more about the situation I have encountered, and invite any/all valid comments and advice.

 

I have a friend who is a Caregiver with 5 patients. One of his patients is the point of contact for the additional 4 patients.

 

The Caregiver introduced me to the one patient/point of contact for the additional patients.

 

This patient/p.o.c./liaison says she has 5 patients ready to go and that paper work is being filled out and that everything is moving along smoothly. She intends to facilitate the transactions between myself and the patients as she suggested that it is practical for privacy reasons on my end.

 

I feel a bit removed from the process and wanted to know if this sounds familiar, typical, or totally out of the ordinary to any of you?

 

I appreciate what she is doing but do not want to get taken for a ride while trying to help.

 

Again, all input is encouraged and appreciated!

 

Thank you for your time and attention.

[Grow Thread]

IMO this is bad. bad bad bad. the only reason i can think of for a c.g. to be operating like this is is for identity protection due to trust issues. this means he/she has not spent enough time with you to trust you at all. no trust = no deal IMO. you are supposed to "relay" your desires/input about the meds through someone else? nah...... that just doesnt sound right to me.

 

or am i not understanding the concept here??

[lkline300]

maybe I'm missing something but what authorizes her to handle the other patients meds. She (if a Patient) can only be in poss, of 2.5ozs at a time.

 

Does she charge for this service?

 

I'm with bubblegrower I think we should, need to know our patients...

 

But you got to give her credit....Patient liaison, very inventive............

[______]

I'm adding this idea to my ever growing list of ways to insert oneself between the patient and the medicine. The only requirement to make this list is that it must increase costs to the patient while adding no value to the medicine.

 

Middlemen annoy me.

[+420Atheist]

It does not make sense to me. It is not like the patient does not have the name and address of the caregiver on their paperwork.

 

I simply would not want to work with patients I did not trust.

[Ms Chocolate]

If I understand correctly: Person A is a CG with 5 patients, among those 5 patients is Patient A, Patient A as contact with 4 other patients, Person A has put you in contact with Patient A.

 

On first read, I was thinking that Patient A was looking to be CG for the other four patients. On second read, I see things differently. There are people and group that are charging patients set-up fees. They charge to show patients where to put their name on the forms (oops, I mean assist patients in filing out the forms), then charge to connect the patients with a CG. Some will also charge the CG for names of patients.

 

I have heard and seen this a few times. Patients are being charged $50 - $100 over the cost of the doctor's visit for what that can get free from reading the forms instructions or attending meetings. Just another way to gouge the sick and infirmed.

 

However, my assumptions could be wrong!

[Highlander]

This may not be a situation where a middleman increases the cost to the patient. It could be the opposite.

 

Talk to CGs with a full load of plants and patients. Between caring for the plants, trimming meds, delivering, making medibles, always improving the grow setup, trying new extracts and tinctures, researching, etc. etc. etc. anyone who is growing upwards of 72 plants will tell you the being a CG is a full time job.

 

Consider that a CG with five patients who is also a patient will need to produce about 24oz of meds per month and make about two deliveries to each of five patients. If he averages trimming an ounce of bud per hour, that is 48 hours per month just trimming dried meds. If he delivers to each of 5 patients twice per month and each delivery takes 2 hours (pretty common…mine take longer. If you actually talk to you patients, the 2 hours total can be a low estimate) then he averages 20 hours per month delivering.

 

That’s nearly half of a full time job right there – just in trimming and delivering. And for many CGs, trimming takes 2 hours for an ounce…

 

When you find a really good grower, wouldn’t his time be better spent growing rather than delivering? Wouldn’t that be better for the MM community as a whole? I have talked to two attorneys about using a delivery service, and both thought that the idea had merit. This delivery service would essentially involve installing lock boxes in the trunk of a car. The lock boxes would not be easily removable, and the CG would have one key and the patient the other. The delivery person would meet the patient who would open the box, drop in the money, and lock it back up. The delivery driver would no more be in possession of the MJ than would a UPS driver be in possession of the rx drugs coming in from India or wherever…(or the cannabis seeds we order )

 

Say for instance “Fred” is a patient and a CG and has 72 plants running. Fred realizes that if he could spend his time growing rather than delivering/talking to patients, he could grow enough for 10 patients without a lot of additional cost out-of-pocket. One of his patients, “suzy” signs up 5 patients of her own. Fred grows, and Suzy transfers meds to her patients and provides delivery service to Fred’s patients.

 

One of the primary factors that will keep meds expensive in Michigan is the CG doing everything. Noone can specialize in any specific task and do it really well. If you can get to a point where you have a grower, trimmer, deliverer, cook, etc. all performing their tasks well, that’s where the price of meds to patients will be easily under that $200/o mark.

[Topshelf]

Thank you everyone for your responses.

 

I should explain further in detail, the situation in which I have arrived, and how I got here.

 

A friend of mine is an existing care provider for 5 patients. He was, and is, a a prominent business man in his area. He works with kids, coaching. His business donates money and advertises with in the community.

 

He finds himself in the same position as if the law were not on his side: keeping his mouth shut.

 

This means minimizing any/all exposure, including that of his patients.

 

NOW...

 

His very first patient is a recovering cancer survivor. They have known one another for a lifetime. Through extensive conversation they arrived at the notion of him taking care of the end of things he does best, and she would take care of ALL patient needs (phone calls, driving, delivery, etc.. and similar to Highlanders open interpretation of the situation).

 

His first patient(now 'liasion', which is my choice of a word btw) finds herself in the position of not only knowing those 4 additional patients, but an ever increasing line of folks looking for the quality of care being provided in the this particular situation.

 

He put the two of us together knowing we would be a match made in Michigan :-)

 

NOW...

 

My situation is different than his. I am not interested in maintaining this anonymity with my patients. I will, if that is what THEY want, but I would encourage an open relationship as it would lend itself to the best care provided.

 

If it is best for everyone to have a 'liasion', who is already the contact for the patients, continue to be their "day to day" point of contact, then I am all for it.

 

Like some of the earlier sentiment expressed in this thread (I feel all of your points made!) I am not interested in driving up costs, or making things more difficult for, any patients!

 

Hopefully I captured this situation more fully and I hope this continues the conversation constructively.

 

I am moving forward in this situation and welcome any relevant advice and information.

 

I will continue to keep you abreast of the situation!

 

Thank you all for your time and attention.

 

Sincerely,

 

Ts

 

P.S. (I want to change my screen name! Can anyone help me please??)