I am disabled with a chronic pain condition called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy and receive medicaid. It is bad enough that it is nearly impossible to find doctors that take medicaid or that medicaid has now gone to a hmo format. On Jan 25th ’05 I began getting these attacks where it felt where I was being electrocuted on the inside. Many things had been tried and even my intrathecal morphine pump did not help. Finally I was put on actiq at 600 mcg twice a day. Well until this past Feb (2009) medicaid had no problem paying for it for more than a year. Now they are denying it saying other treatments are available. Starting last year they required prior authorization for this medication and my doctor had to send a letter explaining why I needed to be on the medication and what other treatments have been tried. Also included in the letter was the fact that I am allergic to adhesives. Well even after several calls from my doctor and another letter, they continued to deny the medication. Since Feb my father has had to pay out of pocket for it at a cost of $1,700.00 a month. We ended up with no choice but to appeal the matter due to the high cost per month. After filling for a hearing, in which we clearly stated it was to get a medication paid for and produced the denial letters, we got a hearing date of June 30th. To make a long story short, after being bounced through 3 confused people; we finally were sent to a fourth person who didn’t look at us like we were speaking gibberish. The problem was I was given a hearing for medical coverage with dhs, when I was supposed to be given a hearing to get the medication paid for with a completely different department. So now we are waiting for a new hearing and this is the last month my dad was able to pay for the medication.