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Top 10 Fake CDPHE Applications

0 comments By admin Filed in Medical Marijuana Tagged with , , , , , March 2nd, 2011 @ 10:07 am

When the Department of Revenue announced the infamous “35 day rule”, many patients were left with questions, mainly “What?”  In the blink of an eye, everyone without a state issued card (and there were TONS) were left scrambling for a small green piece of paper many didn’t know they needed.  The running joke was that you can send anything certified mail to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to obtain one… and many did.

While combing the CDPHE website, an interesting list popped up.  Certified Mail Fraud: Ineligible Applications definitely catches the eye.  What followed was a hilarious list of actual documents sent to the department in lieu of an application.  Some of the highlights include:

  1. Amendment 20 (possibly sent in protest?)
  2. House for Sale Ad
  3. City Market Sales Circular
  4. Burger King Receipt (sometimes a health department issue)
  5. Great Clips Employment Application
  6. Statement of broken leg
  7. New Mexico GED Application (try, try again)
  8. Simple math problems (my personal favorite)
  9. Colorado Opera Schedule (like the CDPHE could find the time!)
  10. Two tubes of lip gloss

Additionally, 108 envelopes were simply empty, while 56 at least included a blank sheet of paper.

If you’re an MMC owner or employee, print the list and check the certified mail number against the slip they present to you.  You could be a target of fraud.

If you have one of these slips, the jig is up!  You gamed the system, but now they may be accusing you of certified mail fraud.

If you’re a fan of common sense, I think this shows what a joke the “35 day rule” was all along.  Hopefully common sense can prevail next time.

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The Health Department Exposed

0 comments By admin Filed in Medical Marijuana Tagged with , , , , , , , , February 2nd, 2011 @ 4:43 pm

After serving nearly 5,000 patients in Colorado, we’ve seen our fair share of paperwork and red cards.  Trust me, we have the filing cabinets to prove it!  When news broke last year that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) was current with all applications, patients all over the state breathed a sigh of “releaf”.  We were skeptical at first; at least until the shiny new certificates came rolling in.

We also started to notice some discrepencies in our database.  Some patients had dramatically different registry numbers compared to patients approved at the same time.   There were gaps in when cards were being issued, as well.  Here is a confidential look at how the CDPHE process has evolved over the last year and a half.

Methodology

To preserve confidentiality, we’ve rounded off the numbers used here.  A registry card will almost always expire a year from the date of issue, so we’ve assumed that a card that expires in 1/01/12 was issued 1/01/11.  We’ve also assumed that when the registry switched the prefix of a registry number from MMR to MMRA (restarting at 0), they did so because they had exhausted their first 99,999 numbers.  Additionally, when reference is made to expiration dates, it’s assumed that cards issued with numbers in close proximity should expire around the same time.

Patient Registry # vs Issue Date

Click for full-sized image

 

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

  1. Beginning in June of ’09, several patients are shorted between three and six months on their expiration dates.  This appears to clear up by the end of the month.
  2. At the end of October ’09, there were several cards that received earlier expiration dates than should have.  Once again, this seems to have been dealt with quickly.
  3. Between October and November of ’09, the CDPHE switches to barcodes for all cards issued.
  4. Between February and March of ’10, at least three patients were shorted up to six months.
  5. In June of ’10, the department issued most of the cards on three dates: 6/7, 6/15 and 6/21.  It appears that they were sending cards weekly at this point instead of the day they were processed.
  6. In July of ’10, card number plays a low indicator in when a card was issued, as expiration dates and MMR #’s vary greatly.  For example, a card expiring on 7/12 is listed in the 47k range, with another expiring on 7/1 in the 48k range.  This continues and gets worse through August.  An expiration of 8/30 was found with barely 60k, while 8/27 is in the 66k range.
  7. September ’10 has very few out of range card numbers until the end of the month, when several patients in the 95K range were accidently given an extra month.  Our records show at least four patients in the 95K range expiring in November, with the last expiration in October in the 120K range.
  8. Around this same time we see our first MMC listed under “Caregiver”.
  9. At the end of Nov, 2010, at least two patients were issued cards with three fewer months on their expiration date.
  10. At the beginning of January ’11 we see “Caregiver” changed to “Provider”.

A few additional observations:

  • Before being inundated with applications, the CDPHE functioned quite well in its role.  It was routinely processing between 500-1000 per month with few complications.
  • When the state said they were hiring additional help, they weren’t kidding.  By hiring 56 additional staffers and outsourcing some of the additional work to Integrated Data Systems, the backlog was eliminated in a matter of months.
  • The patient count has climbed to over 150,000… or has it?  Renewals don’t get to keep their previous number, so the actual registry number isn’t quite accurate.

Summary

The CDPHE has faced, and cleared, a large administrative hurdle in processing over 100,000 registry applications.  While we believe certain pockets of patients did not receive proper expiration dates, we’d rate their performance as fair considering the monumental task they were faced with.  We’d love to hear from the department regarding our findings, but we’re not sure how to get a human on the phone over there.  How would YOU rate the CDPHE?

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Important Board of Health Meeting Tomorrow

0 comments By admin Filed in Medical Marijuana Tagged with , , , , , , , , October 19th, 2010 @ 11:55 am

Over the next several weeks, lawmakers will tackle several key issues in the ongoing regulation of medical marijuana in Colorado.  On Wednesday, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) will be holding a public rulemaking hearing regarding two issues: amendments to how new conditions are petitioned in and defining the indigency standards for discounted application fees.

It appears as though the state is set to determine new conditions only by peer reviewed, randomized controlled trials on humans.  Since marijuana remains a schedule 1 drug federally, the top scientists and universities in the U.S. cannot run any clinical trials to establish the efficacy of medical cannabis.  When we at The Releaf Center suggested that the CDPHE should also consider any conditions approved in other medical marijuana states, such as PTSD in New Mexico, we were informed that this seemed unlikely to be added.  The committee chair and chief medical officer for the CDPHE, Ned Calonge, simply won’t budge.

In terms of indigency requirements, there has been a recent groundswell from MMJ activists to have fees reduced and allow for broader standards of who an indigent patient is.  For more details, see the press releases we heartily agree with from CTI and Sensible Colorado.

CTI:

For immediate release: October 18, 2010

CTI Demands Board of Health Lower Medical Marijuana Patient Fee

Public Hearing on Indigent Standard on Wednesday

Contact Cannabis Therapy Institute
1-877-420-4205

{Denver} — The Cannabis Therapy Institute has sent a letter to the
Colorado Board of Health demanding that they lower the patient fee of $90
to $10 for all patients and is encouraging patients and supporters to
attend the Board of Health public hearing this Wednesday to testify in
favor of lower patient fees.

The annual patient registry fee was initially set at $90 after Amendment 20
passed in 2000 based on the estimate that only a few hundred patients a
year would use the registry. However in the past year, there have been over
100,000 new applicants, far surpassing the original estimate upon which the
$90 fee was based.

On Wednesday, the Board of Health will hold a public hearing to address two
rulemaking changes regarding the medical marijuana program. The Board will
make changes on how new debilitating medical conditions are added to the
list of qualifying conditions. The Board will also discuss setting a
standard for indigent patients for the purposes of waiving the $90 annual
application fee.

Despite intense lobbying by Sensible Colorado and other groups to the Board
of Health to set a reasonable standard for indigent patients, the Board of
Health’s proposed rules would only allow patients to qualify for indigent
status if they are “over 65, blind, disabled (according to rigid SSI
standards), or whose net income is less than $903 a month and on food
assistance.”
http://sensiblecolorado.org/

CTI is encouraging patients, caregivers and other advocates to contact the
Board of Health and demand that they lower the patient fee to $10 for all
patients. Article XVIII, Section 14 (3) (i) of the Colorado Constitution
(Colorado’s Medical Marijuana Amendment) clearly states that the medical
marijuana Registry fees shall only go to pay “any direct or indirect
administrative costs” of the program. This language was included precisely
because the authors wanted to prevent the government from charging
exorbitant fees to patients. The fees were only meant to cover the costs of
the program.

The Registry fund currently has a surplus of over $9 million and there is
at least another $6 million in uncashed checks in applications that have
yet to be processed. In August, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter expressed his
intention to steal $9 million out of the patient registry fund and transfer
it to the state’s General Fund to help alleviate budget shortfalls in other
areas of government.
http://www.cannabistherapyinstitute.com/news/ritter.steal.cashfund.html

The Constitution states that they registry fees are only for administrative
costs of the program. If the Board of Health will not act to stop the
illegal diversion of money out of the patient fund, they must act
immediately with emergency rules that lower the patient fees to $10 to
prevent the surplus of money from continuing to increase. The Board of
Health is illegally charging fees in excess of those necessary to run the
Registry program. This theft of patient money must end.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1) Attend the public hearing and testify for a lowering of patient fees for
all patients
Date: Wed., October 20, 2010
Time: 9:30 am
Sabin-Cleere Conference Room
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
Bldg. A, First Floor
4300 Cherry Creek Drive South, Denver, CO 80246,

Click here for full meeting agenda:
http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/op/bh/agendas/BOHOctober20AgendaAPPROVED.pdf

2) Submit your comments in writing. By law, the Board of Health must accept
all written comments up to the time of the public hearing.

Colorado Board of Health
4300 Cherry Creek Drive South EDO-A5
Denver, CO 80246-1530
FAX: 303-691-7702
E-mail: cdphe.edobohcomments_indigencystandards@state.co.us

Send a copy of any correspondence to: info@cannabistherapyinstitute.com

BECOME A CTI SPONSOR
This press release was written by the Cannabis Therapy Institute’s Patient
Advocacy Project.
Please donate to support our mission of patient advocacy and activism.
http://www.cannabistherapyinstitute.com/donate.html

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Don’t Get Rejected by the State (not advice for dating a government employee)

0 comments By admin Filed in Medical Marijuana Tagged with , , , , , , , February 4th, 2010 @ 11:22 am

With more and more citizens of Colorado becoming enlightened to the ineffable medicinal properties of marijuana, the MMJ Registry is doing their best to keep up with the growing demand of new patients. I’ve heard rumors of 500+ applications being received per day, and also last week that the registry is currently processing those apps received back in late October.

I was so excited when I found out about this viable alternative [to pain meds] that I rushed through the paperwork… three months later, my application had been returned because I failed to read the fine print.

Some of the most common reasons for being rejected/postponed include: using a black ink pen – don’t do that – you must use blue ink; all of your signatures must be notarized, not just the one on the doctor’s recommendation – don’t forget to sign your money order; also, ensuring that the version of the paperwork that you submit is the most recent… the list goes on, and you should certainly check it out if you’re a newbie.

Here’s a link to the complete listing on the CDPHE website:

http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/hs/medicalmarijuana/Common%20Mistakes.pdf

Always Buy Colorado Medicine.

Peace out.

-Jason

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