Opioid Prescription Guidelines Revised

It’s clear that inappropriate opioid prescription guidelines used by physicians have fueled the current opioid crisis. For years, Doctors have prescribed painkillers in a one-size-fits-all fashion even though some research has shown that up to 80 percent of the opioid prescriptions written to patients are not used, the Baltimore Sun reported.

A panel from Johns Hopkins Hospital believes opioids have a place in controlling debilitating pain, but

considering that half of the patients who don’t need opioid drugs for pain relief leave the hospital with a prescription anyway, it wants to promote other ways to fight pain instead, such as direct to site pain

relief and use of less addictive pain medications.

The hospital has developed new prescribing guidelines for at least 20 types of procedures. These new

recommended guidelines will be the default electrical medical system settings, replacing the current

default of a 30-day supply for surgical patients.

Opioid Scripts for 20 Procedures Reduced

30 pharmacists, pain specialists, surgical residents, surgeons, outpatient surgical nurse practitioners and patients made up the panel, which recommends that opioid prescriptions for procedures from

orthopedic surgery to ear, nose, and throat procedures be reduced to:

 One to 15 pills for 11 procedures

 16 to 20 pills for six types of procedures

 No pills for three types of procedures

The hospital hopes the new guidelines will facilitate other hospitals and surgical associations to update

their own prescribing policies to reduce the number of opioids that patients are exposed to.

U.S. Government Wants Opioid New Prescription Guidelines

Prescribing guideline changes may be far more effective than recently proposed policies by the Centers

for Medicare and Medicaid which seek to restrict the number of prescription opioids patients have

access to, including by having insurers deny coverage for certain prescriptions.

The first proposal would have insurers deny Part D coverage for more than a 7-day script for first-time

opioid users. The second proposal would deny payment for opioid prescriptions through Part D that arelarger than the equivalent of 90 MME (milligrams of morphine). While patient’s whose scripts are

rejected could still have their prescription and Medicaid which seek to restrict the number of prescription opioids patients have access to, including by having insurers deny coverage for certain prescriptions.

The first proposal would have insurers deny Part D coverage for more than a 7-day script for first-time opioid users.

The second proposal would deny payment for opioid prescriptions through Part D that are

larger than the equivalent of 90 MME (milligrams of morphine). While patient’s whose scripts are

rejected could still have their prescription paid by Medicare, they would have to appeal the decision and provide an acknowledgment from their physicians that they qualify for an exception that allows for

higher doses, such as being terminally ill.

However, scores of physicians have spoken out against the policies saying they would harm patients

with chronic pain and would do little actually to reduce the addiction epidemic. In fact, when

prescriptions are lowered or denied, some stable patients may be forced to self-treat with street drugs.

Forcing patients into the black market and making cancer patients and the terminally ill wait for pain

relief or pay out of pocket isn’t a solution. Patients didn’t start the epidemic, and they shouldn’t be the

ones to suffer knee-jerk policies that offer no proof of being able to rectify the crisis.

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