Practice Management
Blue Cross and Blue Shield says thousands of physicians continually break evolving North Carolina laws regarding prescriptions for opiates—but acknowledges the difficulties both of keeping track of those laws on the physicians’ part and enforcing them on the state’s part. The challenge may be especially great in regard to the NC STOP Act, which limits opioid prescriptions to 5 days for first-time patients with short-term pain (or 7 days if the patient had surgery). The …
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It isn’t enough for urgent care clinicians to be more judicious in prescribing opiates for patients in pain. A seamless approach to medication security also has to be in place in order to thwart crooked workers looking to make a quick buck on the backs of addicts in need of a fix. A case in southwest Florida is a painful reminder that anyone with access to addictive drugs could land your business in trouble and …
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Shortening duration of treatment, adopting a multimodal, nonopioid model for acute pain management treatment, and establishing a system for notifying primary care providers when their patients are prescribed opiates are high on the list of recommendations just issued by the Texas Hospital Association (THA) for emergency room clinicians. While the guidelines are voluntary, they reflect a growing trend toward institutionalizing opiate prescribing practices in multiple settings around the country. They could reasonably be viewed as …
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Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD says his agency needs to do more to help stem the opioid-addiction epidemic in the United Sates. For starters, he wants the FDA to impose stricter guidelines for prescribing immediate-release opioid drugs. The first step will be for the agency to expand training for physicians, nurses, and other providers who administer immediate-release opioids. While there is already training available, the FDA says it will now broaden information …
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