Patients Allege Mistreatment at Montana Pain Clinic

By Pat Anson, Editor

A Montana pain clinic is under fire from patients for abruptly stopping their opioid medication, forcing them to take expensive drug tests, and steering them towards invasive and potentially dangerous procedures.

Some former patients at the Benefis Pain Management Center in Great Falls also allege they have been unfairly labeled as addicts, which has made it difficult for them to find new doctors.

“I’ve never been treated so badly in my life as I have at Benefis, to the point that I terminated my care with them, because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be called an addict and a junkie anymore,” says Tami Duncan, a 50-year old woman who suffers from chronic back pain.

“I’m not going back. I am done with them,” says another former patient. “It’s like I was a junkie just looking for my next fix. And that’s not the case at all.”

“You become terrified of who you are going to see next and what they are going to say and do to you,” said a current patient. “The fear of losing my job and not to mention my sanity. The fear that I am going to be labeled an addict if I don’t do what they tell me to.”

“They do not care. They do not know their patients. They do not review the records,” another current patient said. “There is so much more. Billing errors, rarely treated like a person, the wait to see doctors, and then 15 minutes (with them) and you are gone.”

The Benefis pain clinic is part of Benefis Health System, a non-profit community-based health organization that operates a hospital and provides a wide variety of medical services in Great Falls, a city of over 58,000 people in north central Montana. With over 250 physicians and about 3,000 other employees, Benefis is the largest employer in the area outside of government.

“We have some of the finest nurses and Physician Pain Management specialists, with experience second to none. This experience combined with their compassion, provide a tremendous supportive atmosphere. Our pain management team aims to help people reduce and cope with pain,” Benefis says on its website.

Some patients disagree, saying Benefis doctors are quick to label a patient as non-compliant, which has led to patients being discharged from the clinic. In a rural state such as Montana, where options for pain care are limited, that is not a threat to be taken lightly.

“Any questions or requests can be seen as combative. To try and protect ourselves we were recording our appointments. Somehow it was found out and there are now signs everywhere stating no recording or photos,” a patient told PNN.

“We are not allowed to have anyone come into the appointment with us. I am being bounced around to different providers. There is no stability. I am still receiving meds but at a fraction of what they were. To say that I am hurting would be an understatement.”

“Our clinic does not suddenly discontinue opioid prescriptions for patients unless we feel it is unsafe to continue prescribing them,” said Katrina Lewis, MD, a Benefis pain management specialist. “We have patients that have been on pretty high doses of opioids for many years but are not experiencing much relief from pain anymore and their quality of life is suffering significantly.  

A SIGN POSTED AT THE BENEFIS PAIN CLINIC

“We have to do what is medically responsible and safe for our patients. Opioids are incredibly powerful drugs. Given the choice between a patient potentially dying and a patient going into withdrawal, we have to pick withdrawal.”

In an age of opioid hysteria and misleading headlines about an overdose epidemic fueled by painkillers, pain patients around the country – including many who have been stable and compliant on opioid medication for years – are seeing their doses cutback or eliminated. Some have been discharged by doctors who are leery of scrutiny by the DEA and no longer want to treat chronic pain.

What sets the disgruntled patients at Benefis apart from everyone else is that they have formed a support group for each other. And some are speaking out publicly against a provider they feel has shamed and abandoned them. For this story, PNN interviewed over a dozen current and former patients, including some who asked to remain anonymous.

Physician Assistant Fired

Many of the problems at the Benefis pain clinic can be traced back to the firing of Rodney Lutes, a popular 68-year old physician assistant (PA) who – until he was let go -- was treating as many as 1,000 pain patients.  

RODNEY LUTES, PA

“I was thunderstruck. It totally blindsided me. I thought I was doing everything I could for the patients,” says Lutes about his firing in early March.

Lutes was told he was “no longer a good fit” at the clinic and that his position was being eliminated. He believes the real reason was that some of his patients were on high doses of opioids that exceeded clinic policy.

“They didn’t come to me and say, ‘Hey Rod, you need to fall in line here and start reducing these people.’ There was no warning whatsoever,” said Lutes. “The majority of the patients were doing very well. You always have some patients who aren’t doing well and you try to adjust their medications. I had a number of those. But otherwise I felt that the patients were doing very well on the doses they were on.”

“We respect our employees’ privacy rights and consequently cannot comment on the details of Rodney Lutes employment with Benefis,” says Keri Garman, Director of Corporate Communications at Benefis.

There is no record of any disciplinary action against Lutes by Montana’s Board of Medical Examiners. He has been licensed as a PA in the state since 1991.

“He’s compassionate and understanding. I’ve never met anybody else like him in my life,” says Tami Duncan, a patient of Lutes for 20 years. “And Benefis is crucifying that man, along with his patients.”

Duncan was on relatively high doses of oxycodone and MS-Contin for chronic back pain caused by herniated and bulging discs, arthritis and fibromyalgia. She’s also had as many as 60 epidural injections, nerve blocks and other "interventional" procedures, which not only failed to stop her back pain, but may have given her adhesive arachnoiditis, a progressive and chronic inflammation of spinal nerves that she was recently diagnosed with.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m standing in a pot of hot boiling water all day,” says Duncan. The first thing she was told by her new doctor at Benefis was that he was taking her off opioids.

“He comes in and didn’t even look at my files, didn’t even look at my record. And he told me, ‘Well Mrs. Duncan, the game plan is we’re taking you off all your medications and then we’ll terminate your care.’” she recalled. “He didn’t know anything about what was wrong with me. Didn’t know I had nerve conduction tests done to show all the nerve damage I have in both of my legs. He basically came out and said, ‘All you patients all need to go into treatment. You’re addicts.’"

“There are many scenarios that may warrant discontinuation of a particular regimen for the benefit of the patient.  Opioids can have many negative side effects for patients,” said Dr. Lewis in a lengthy statement for PNN prepared by Benefis. “We understand that this can be unsettling for patients who have been with a provider for a long period of time and who are accustomed to their care plan.”

Duncan started looking for a new pain doctor and immediately ran into problems. When she visited a pain clinic in her hometown of Havre, she was turned away without an exam or review of her medical records.

“The RN proceeded to tell me that I was a junkie, those are her words, that I was an addict and the only thing that was wrong with me is that I needed to go to treatment,” she said. “I’ve called all over the state trying to find a different pain doctor. Nobody will take me. Benefis has called every doctor in the state of Montana saying not to take any of Lutes’ patients.”

Duncan cites a letter she received from Benefis, which states: “All care providers in our community have been made aware of the changes in our clinic and with what is going on with PA Lutes’ patients.”

“It is our standard practice to send a note to referring physicians within our own health system and community to let them know of changes to the providers practicing in our clinic.  The letters never indicate the reason a person is no longer with our organization,” Kathy Hill, Benefis’ Chief Operating Officer said in the statement. “Community providers had many patients calling with concerns about whether they would be able to get in with a new provider soon enough to avoid a lapse in their medications.

“Whether or not to prescribe opioids to any patient is at the discretion of the provider. Providers were not urged either way.”

‘Nobody Will See Pain Patients’

Regardless of the reason, many former patients of Lutes are having trouble finding new doctors, a not uncommon experience in rural areas where healthcare choices are limited.

“Nobody in Great Falls will see any pain patients. I’m just sitting here in limbo doing nothing but being in pain,” said a former patient who decided to leave Benefis after her opioid medication was stopped. The doctor who replaced Lutes persuaded her to have an epidural, a decision she now regrets.  

“They’re forcing everybody to get injections,” says Adrienne Barnoski, another former patient. She and her husband Joseph, who has severe back pain, had been treated by Lutes for years.

“I’m not going to have any injections on my back after what my husband has gone through. It sometimes makes things worse,” she said.

Epidural injections have been used for decades to relieve pain during childbirth, but in recent years injections of a steroid into the epidural space around the spinal cord have increasingly been used to treat back pain.  The shots have become a common and sometimes lucrative procedure at pain clinics, where costs vary from as little as $445 to $2,000 per injection. Critics say the injections are risky, overused and often a waste of money.

“An epidural steroid injection is an invasive procedure. It has its risks. And I think a patient always has the right to decline an invasive procedure,” says Lutes. “I’ve had a couple of patients tell me (that they were told) to do epidural steroid injections and if they didn’t do the injections they were no longer going to be prescribed any medications. To me, that’s kind of like blackmail.  

“My patients are being treated very, very poorly. It’s horrible. I’ve had calls from patients or their spouses, very concerned the patient was going to commit suicide. It just scares me to death. And these were patients that were functionally doing great. And now they’re being told, sorry, we’re taking your medication away from you.”

Benefis says it does not pressure patients into having invasive procedures, but admits there could have been communication problems between doctors and their patients.

"This is not a policy or an expectation in any way. While we expect patients to be active participants in getting better, there is never a mandatory procedure,” said Nikki Phillips, BSN, Clinic Office Manager at Benefis Neurosciences. “We do our best to care for our patients and regret that this transition has been difficult for some. We realize we have opportunities to improve our communication with patients and will be working on that as a team moving forward.”

“The decision of whether or not to prescribe opioids to a patient is in no way related to their decision to have or not have other interventional procedures,” said Dr. Lewis. “Unfortunately there are some patients who come into the clinic with a preconceived notion that opioids are the answer for them, whether because of past practice within the medical community or other reasons, and overcoming that preconceived notion can be challenging.”

A major challenge for the patients who remain at Benefis is paying for their urine drug tests, which can cost as much as $1,500 and are not always covered by insurance.  For the past two years, Benefis has been working with a drug laboratory over 2,000 miles away in Georgia, one with a questionable past and a very uncertain future. For more on that part of the story, click here.