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Practitioners end up at risk in drug testing because they lack knowledge of the policies that payors put out on medical necessity. They also can get into a lot of trouble if they don’t understand the mechanics of the clinical laboratory regarding presumptive testing and definitive testing. It’s...
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I definitely would agree that methadone needs to be respected. I think the other thing, though, is there is such a negative stigma about it that a lot of practitioners have kind of thrown their hands up saying, ‘I don’t understand this, we’re not going to do it.’ What we learn about are always the...
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I would start off by saying that methadone definitely doesn’t have a sense of humor. I think as a practitioner, you have to not only understand the literature for methadone but also the limitations of what we know of methadone. It can be very unforgiving, and so really having a respect for those...
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An analysis conducted by researchers at University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health concludes that rising death rates from drug overdoses in the US long precede the now notorious “opioid crisis,” and that a near perfect exponential growth curve in these rates can be tracked back to the...
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A small study conducted by researchers from the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV (CDUHR) at New York University concludes that managers and staff of publicly patronized business establishments can be effective first responders to incidents of opioid overdose, if they are properly trained. A prior...
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Researchers from the University of Southern California have recently completed a survey of frontline providers concerning care for infants affected by neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) resulting from in utero exposure to opioids. Conclusions drawn from this work have resulted in the identification...
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A Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers updated data on the estimated prevalence of chronic pain in America. The report summarizes conclusions from a 2016 survey conducted in fulfillment of a National Pain...
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The search for a new molecule in the face of the opioid crisis may have taken a major step forward with the recent discovery of a chemical compound, AT-121, that provides analgesia without addictive potential. Mei-Chuan Ko, PhD, professor of physiology and pharmacology at the School of Medicine...
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New research led by a team from Binghamton University, State University at New York, concludes that single-step nasal spray delivery of naloxone is the easiest and most successful route of administration for members of the general community. Naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan®, can be...
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Many states have now taken legislative action to limit first-time prescribing of opioid analgesics for acute pain, some with restrictions of as few as 3-days’ supply. Recently, the US Food and Drug Association has engaged the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to...