Opioid Limits - Yay or nay?

[Truthspeaker]

Gonna be honest, I'm worried about my retail colleagues with these new changes.

I ALWAYS tell doctors to do the right thing. I tell em to only prescribe what the patient actually needs. However, the doctors tell me when you got a big league INJURY you need a big league opioid prescription. Now there are limits on the opioids like never before.

I don't mean to state the obvious, but what is stopping doctors from just writing unsafe prescriptions for LARGER quantities of opioids by tweaking the directions i.e. take Oxycodone 2 to 3 tablets every 4 hours PRN pain? Then they just tell the patient to take 1 tablet every 4 hours as needed if it is TOO STRONG for them. This would force you guys in retail to dispense MORE opioids & unsafe quantities.

Okay and some real talk here. Is it true that some retail pharmacists would rather doctors write MULTIPLE prescriptions for 7 day supplies with "do not fill until <insert date>" written on them? A lot of doctors and patients don't have time to have an office visit every 1 week, especially if the patient lives two hours away from medical care and is too broke to afford a ride.

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[npage148]

My state implemented morphine equivalent limits and days supply limits so it stops the 1-2 q3h bs

I'm for it, these draconian rules were put in place becaue prescribers couldn't prescribe appropriately or just didn't care. How many years have they been told to cool it with the opiates but they just waved their hands and said they knew what was best for their patients.

It nice also becaue it takes some of the pressure off of us stopping inappropaite prescribing.

 

[maria1oh]

7 day opiod limit with insurance means 7 days every 30 days. You can't just keep repeating the same rx every 7 days. Also you can't just switch opiod and hope it goes through. The insurance is blocking it.

 

[ineeddrug]

Almost all pt wants choose to pay cash price for full qty when ins inly covers 7 day supply (and lose the remaining qty) in my pharmacy.

 

[moose10]

"im going to cancel my insurance and pay cash for this right now"....

 

[Carboxide]

Yes, but they should be able to apply for a prior auth. I think that 'back pain' should not be an approved indication, though. Nor should fibromyalgia, etc.