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CVS is finally trying to do something about the opioid epidemic:
Drug-store chain CVS Health announced Thursday that it will limit opioid prescriptions in an effort to combat the epidemic that accounted for 64,000 overdose deaths last year alone.
Amid pressure on pharmacists, doctors, insurers and drug companies to take action, CVS also said it would boost funding for addiction programs, counseling and safe disposal of opioids.
[...] The company's prescription drug management division, CVS Caremark, which provides medications to nearly 90 million people, said it would use its sweeping influence to limit initial opioid prescriptions to seven-day supplies for new patients facing acute ailments.
It will instruct pharmacists to contact doctors when they encounter prescriptions that appear to offer more medication than would be deemed necessary for a patient's recovery. The doctor would be asked to revise it. Pharmacists already reach out to physicians for other reasons, such as when they prescribe medications that aren't covered by a patient's insurance plan.
The plan also involves capping daily dosages and initially requiring patients to get versions of the medications that dispense pain relief for a short period instead of a longer duration.
[...] "The whole effort here is to try to reduce the number of people who are going to end up with some sort of opioid addiction problem," CVS Chief Medical Officer Troyen Brennan said in an interview.
It appears this initiative is limited to initial filling of prescriptions — there is no mention of changes in the handling of refills.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Tuesday September 26 2017, @01:43AM
My father-in-law was a Pharmacist. On many occasions he saved a patient's life by noticing that a doctor had prescribed a drug that was deadly when combined with something else that the patient was already on.
After he semi-retired, he took up a part time job reviewing patient drug profiles. The aim of the job was to reduce the number of medications and complications by using complementary drugs and minimising the number of drugs that were simply to manage side-effects of other drugs. I think his record was getting a patient from 18 different drugs down to 3. Good outcome for the patient. Less money for the pharmacist, but it seems that they genuinely care about the wellbeing of their customers.