TOXICOLOGY
MEDICATION MONITORING
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Medication monitoring results can help a clinician assess whether a patient is taking the prescribed medication or if a patient is taking other drugs (prescribed or illicit) that the clinician is not aware of.
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A clinician conducting medication monitoring not only wants to look at the results to help him or her assess whether the patient is taking the prescribed drug, but also wants to see if the patient is taking medications that the prescriber does not know about.
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Studies suggest that clinicians have a difficult time assessing if their pain patients are using their pain medications as prescribed or misusing, abusing or diverting their medications.
“ The use of prescription pain relievers for nonmedical purposes is now the second most common form of drug abuse.”
— American Academy of Family Physicians
“ …Monitoring the behavior alone of patients on chronic opioid treatment will fail to detect potential problems revealed by urine toxicology testing.”
—Clinical Journal of Pain
“Periodic random urine drug testing is recommended for all patients on ongoing opioid therapy. It should be conducted more often in patients who are at higher risk for misuse or abuse, and in patients who exhibit possible aberrant drug-taking behaviors.”
—American Academy of Family Physicians