DrugBuyers.Com: Question on patient abandonment by doctor in Texas

I recieved a pateint termination letter from my doctor last week. I confronted my doctor as soon as I got the letter and he said the letter was a 'mistake'. He felt that a month ago or so, he felt like he was not helping. Apparently he let it slip to one or more of his staff and one or more of his staff had a hand in this letter. Call me paranoid, but after the old office manager who was a friend left about a year ago, I feel like his staff would love to get rid of me. I don't know why either. I don't lose prescriptions and call with that excuse for new ones, I treat everyone with respect, etc.

I would LOVE to post the letter but don't know how and DB might not let me. It was signed by his office manager (funny, I thought she was just the assistant office manager). But my doctor likes to keep moving his staff around like chess pieces on the board. Example: one person will do his clinic's workers comp for a year or so and then get assigned new duties. A nurse might become a receptionist for a while. The are no no management skills on anyones' part including the doctor. But he is a decent guy-or so I thought.

The was no referral for another doctor or pain management. Just that I could only contact his office of a life threatening emergency.

Things were going very well after we had spent over a year to find a good pain medication combination. I was hit totally out of the blue.

But I would appreciate any legal minds answering my question -doesn't the doctor have to sign the termination letter? Also, no provision was made for another month of Avinza. He did write 2 refills on the hydro. But I had not planned to be looking for a new doctor. He does write me refills most of the time so I thought.

But I am taking class 2 drugs which started on Avinza which is a time release 24 hour morphine pill at 120 mgs. He erroneously wrote in his notes that I waid that I was having trouble breathing ( he said he wrote I told him I had this touble which I never did). Then he put me on the Fentanal patch for about 3 months until they became impossible to find in my area due to problems at the manufacturere ( I did not spell the drug write-sorry). Then he put me on 20 mgs of straight oxy 2 times a day for a month which I could not tolerate. I am back on Avinza at 60 mgs. a month for the last 2 months. All the time, I have been taking hydro 10/500 four times a day as breakthough.

Before the class 2 drugs, I was taking Hydro prescibed by this doctor 4 times a day for over a year and have seen him since 1999.

I gave this history to show that I did not just walk into his clinic a few months ago.

I feel that he should have at least talked to me if he felt that he could not help and under my insurance plan, HE is the one that must make the referral for any type of specialist like PM doctors.

He just threw me to the wolves and had I not gone to his office and looked him in the eye, I never would have gotten to talk to him since I know his staff would have prevented me from contacting him. I also want to taper off the medication for personal reasons and certainly do not want to mess with class 2 drugs if he is going to not support me.

Short of suing him for mal-practice or something one poster mentioned called patient abandaonment (which I do not know anything about), or finding a new doctor, what are my options?

Can someone explian the patient abandonment and does it apply in Texas? I think that it does since I beleive the law firm that I used to get my social security disability specializes in an area called prescription malpractice (I may be wrong about this). Lastly, doesn't the doctor himself have to sign a patient termination letter and not one of his staff in Texas?