Do I Need To Follow Up With My Doctor?

This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on September 3, 2014.

The doctor has signed your card, the state has your money and mailed you a license, do you need to follow up with your ‘pot’ doc or just worry about follow-up when your certification is near expiration?

This is a common question that patients struggle with. While state law does not read patients must visit their cannabis doctor more than once, criminal prosecutors may care how often you visit with your ‘pot’ doc and use it to disqualify your legal status as a patient.

Too often patients meet a doctor (often very competent docs) at an expo or education conference to get a certification, but where do you go if you have questions. After all, some of these doctors may not maintain a physical office dedicated to marijuana, they may be moonlighting. Who do you follow up with questions? Do you need to, and if so, how often?

We asked Doctor Kumar Singh of the Greenlite Clinic in Michigan the following question. ‘Doctor Singh, do you perform follow up visits for cannabis patients that you did not write their initial recommendation?’

“Our clinic has noticed increases in patients just wanting a follow up visit. This is done in ‘traditional’ medicine when a doctor and patient have a falling out, personality clash, etc.–patient often transferred to a partner doctor or another facility. Things like this happen all the time, why would medical marijuana be any different.”

While many states have similar regulation in regards to standards of care for prescribed medicine, and how often a doctor need follow up with the patient, marijuana is not ‘technically’ prescribed due its DEA classification.

Do physicians have a duty to follow up with their patients, or do patients need to manage their own health care?

Legal case law in the medical marijuana industry is not very-well defined. Criminal defense lawyer Paul Tylenda focuses on medical marijuana cases throughout Michigan and had this to say, “prosecutors try to invalidate legal patient cards at trial by discrediting the defendant’s doctor. They want to know how often the patient visited with a doctor and discussed their medical marijuana use.”

Are you following up with your certifying physician?