I am a patient at the pain clinic of the hospital my PCP is affiliated with. The way they explained it to me at the pain clinic was that those docs do not write for pain meds because there were too many problems with patients calling in after hours for pain meds, bugging the on call anesthesiologists who were doing surgeries, etc.

I'm now playing the WC waiting game waiting for insurance approval to be seen at a different pain clinic that will write recommendations to my PCP who will then write the scripts for narcotics.

My neurologist has been writing for my Vicodin, but my regular health insurance that pays for my meds has dropped him, so currently I am private paying but I can't afford to keep paying $105 a month just for that med.