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Providers who do not understand medical necessity for drug testing, controlled medication prescribing, and substance abuse treatment are at risk as payers increasingly scrutinize these areas. Attorney Jennifer Bolen outlines some "pearls and pitfalls" for clinicians. Watch for important tools you...
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Dr. Cheatle reviews some medication and non-medication treatment options for addressing substance use disorder. The message to primary care: a multimodal approach works best, and treatment of the SUD without attention to management of the patient's underlying pain is the likely route to relapse.
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Patients with chronic pain and substance use disorders often have accompanying psychiatric and medical disorders that place them at elevated risk for suicide. Dr. Cheatle, a professor of psychiatry, discusses the epidemiology of suicidal ideation in this population and offers some guidance in...
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In this discussion, senior faculty members Heit and Gourlay reflect on some of the challenges resulting from the recent "decade of pain". Both the overuse of opioids and the solutions that have been proposed in response have led to changes in how we diagnose and treat this patient population...
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New research conducted by a team from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in association with Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University suggests a promising new path to stemming the crisis of overdose fatality from fentanyl. The study found that inexpensive test strips were as...
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A case report authored by an investigative team from West Virginia University has uncovered a new risk associated with the use of the synthetic narcotic fentanyl: it may produce a distinctive form of amnesia. The extreme potency of fentanyl, at between 50 to 100 times greater than morphine, also...
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The risk for opioid dependency among opioid-naïve cancer patients who took the medication following lung surgery, is highlighted in new research presented earlier this week at the annual meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Lead author Alexander Brescia, MD, commented, “Surgeons are at the...
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Results of a study conducted by researchers from Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes Jewish Hospital, St. Louis, suggest that a new patient education brochure is effective in forestalling diversion of opioid medications. The patient education material outlines safe medication...
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A study conducted by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sheds new light on national patterns for opioid prescribing to US patients who are below age 65 and on disability. The survey included data from 2014 on some 3.5 million Medicare Part D recipients who were medically...
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Fewer than 5% of people who are referred for treatment for opioid abuse from the criminal justice system in the US are receiving medication assisted therapy. This finding is reported by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in a study report appearing in the December...