Why Test?
Because you want to:
- Be compliant with DEA regulations
- Improve patient care and minimize practice risk
- Ensure that the patient is not taking any prescription drugs from other sources.
- See if the patient is being honest when saying what he or she is taking.
- Check for the use of any illicit drugs.
- Identify a patient who misuses or diverts medications.
- Verify compliance with the treatment plan through having the correct drug and its metabolites in the patient's system.
- Identify that the metabolites are in the correct amount for what has been prescribed.
- Avoid or detect dangerous drug-to-drug interactions.
- Reduce the risk of toxicity in patients vulnerable to adverse drug effects.
- Develop the most appropriate and effective treatment plan
17% of doctors who treat pain are investigated each year and a pain treating physician is arrested and charged criminally somewhere in the U.S. daily.
- Practical Pain Management, October 2006
From the physician's perspective, urinary drug testing is the cheapest insurance for liability protection in clinical testing.
From the legal perspective, it is a necessary tool for protecting the physician's license or practice.
From the clinical perspective, it serves the very important role of enhancing patient care.
From the societal perspective, it gives the public assurance that only legitimate pain patients are being perscribed potentially abusable drugs.
- Practical Pain Management, April 2005 and June 2007