Pain Can Be Lethal
Pain Can Be Lethal.
New Findings from the Center for Disease Control Lead to Interesting Questions.
MONROE, MI. USA – November 8, 2011 – Physician’s Technology, LLC, today appealed to health care providers, insurers, and third party payers to evaluate their policy in prescribing Opioid Pain Relievers (OPR) in response to recent findings by the Center for Disease Control. In the CDC’s report dated Nov. 4, 2011, the government revealed that some 14,800 deaths were caused by overdose of OPRs which comprised 78% of all drug overdoses.
The same report concluded that, “The epidemic of overdoses of OPR has continued to worsen. Wide variation among states in the non-medical use of OPR and overdose rates cannot be explained by underlying demographic differences in state population, but is related to wide variations in OPR prescribing.”
The implication for public health practice went on to admonish health care providers to only use OPRs in carefully screened and monitored patients when non-OPR treatments are insufficient to manage pain. Insurers and prescription drug monitoring programs can identify and should take action to reduce both inappropriate and illegal prescribing.
Physician’s Technology CEO, David B. Sutton commented, “These are shocking figures and certainly should sound a loud alarm These numbers are more than statistics as they represent both a life in misery and a family left behind. And, the research does not include the tens of thousands in pain that become dependent on OCRs who may be in grave danger from multiple drug related factors.”
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