High risk Rx ???

[E/M Coder]

Patient is on:

Trazodone 50 mg
Diovan
Metformin 500mg

Can anyone tell me if these are "High Risk" Rx's according to the "Table of Risk"?

Or can anyone tell me where I can find out if these and other Rx's are high risk?

Thanks

[LTibbetts]

Usually, high risk meds are things like chemotherapy, immunosuppressive drugs and stuff like that. Not sure what the niddle drug you listed is, but the other 2 are definitely not high risk. Hope this helps

[sullivak]

Diovan is a antiotensin-receptor blocker for HTN. I would not consider this a high risk drug either.

[Pam Brooks]

It's not the medication by itself, per se, that qualifies 'high risk'. The table of risk states "drug therapy requiring intensive monitoring for toxicity". Ask yourself, is the patient having multiple visits or multiple blood tests to measure medication levels? How frequent is the patient being monitored? Are other medications a factor? Coumadin (Warfarin) is quite toxic, and early on when a patient has begun a treatment protocol, blood tests are ordered every few days. This qualifies as intensive monitoring. However, after several years on Coumadin, the monitoring might drop back to every few months. Even though Coumadin is a highly dangerous and toxic medication ( if not intensively monitored,) the prescription alone wouldn't qualify as high risk, particularly in a patient with well-controlled a-fib.