Wiki Table of Risk question regarding opioid prescribing

whughes9805

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On the Table of Risk, would prescribing opioids fall under the moderate column for prescription drug management? Or, under high for drug therapy requiring intensive monitoring for toxicity?
 
Opioid prescriptions do not always require intensive monitoring. If the physician has not documented planning or setting up any kind of drug toxicity monitoring in their plan of care (e.g. orders for lab draws or urine tests to evaluate for toxicity), then in my opinion it would not fall under that high risk category.
 
The answer to your question really depends on the context of the rest of the patient chart. Based on the little information you are sharing, I would probably assign a Moderate Risk for that prescription.

In order to assign a High Risk based on drug therapy requiring intensive monitoring for toxicity, documentation should have to have a clear link between the drug and monitoring for that same. A good example is methotrexate and RA where the provider is ordering labs to monitor drug levels in the patient's blood to ensure the drug levels are not too high. Documentation will really make or break this determination.
 
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