The Latest CDC Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids
Apr 04, 2018
The Center for Disease Control or CDC published its latest Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain in March of 2016. They help medical professionals prescribe opioids to patients 18 and older. The guidelines are recommendations, not law.
The guidelines focus on prescribing opioids to patients suffering from chronic pain lasting over three months, or those struggling with tissue not healing. However, these guidelines aren’t intended for situations where the patient is in active cancer treatment, palliative care, or end-of-life care.
The CDC suggests when it’s appropriate to initiate or continue prescribing opioids for chronic pain. Patients shouldn’t be able to just walk in and ask for an opioid prescription. Not to mention, a patients current treatment needs regular monitoring by their healthcare professional.
The CDC also supplies information on opioid selection, dosage, duration, follow-up and discontinuation. And no opioid guideline is complete without including what medical and health care professionals must take extremely seriously—how to acknowledge and evaluate risk to the patient.
Our goal is to help patients find relief in an innovative, safe and responsible way, and the CDC’s Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain advises us in doing so. It’s is a great resource for medical and health care professionals.
If you have any questions concerning opioid prescription, please feel free to ask them in the comment section below. Alternatively, contact us to schedule an appointment to discuss treatment options and what’s best for you.