As a part of federal efforts to curb prescription abuse, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has reclassified hydrocodone-combination drugs (Vicodin/AbbVie) as a schedule 2 drug .
That will mean physicians will not be ready to write prescriptions for a 6-month’s supply, but are going to be limited to valium online fast delivery. Patients will now need to attend a physician’s office a minimum of every 90 days to urge a replacement prescription.
“That could mean a decrease in hydrocodone-combination sales—that’s probably why there was resistance from the drug companies–but for many doctors it won’t be that big deal,” said Mark Melrose, MD, commenting on the switch to schedule 2. Melrose may be a n medicine specialist who is a partner in Urgent Care Manhattan, a two-location walk-in emergency care practice in ny City.
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“If there’s a legitimate need for a patient to urge Vicodin, why wouldn’t you prescribe it?” he said.
“Even when it had been class 3, we still had to follow up with a written prescription and appear up a patient on the prescription registry,” something most states have now, he said.
But albeit the tighter controls mean some doctors will switch appropriate patients to schedule 3 drugs, like acetaminophen with codeine, Aerial yoga hammock alternative painkillers have an extended thanks to attend topple the market leader, consistent with data from IMS Health.
- Hydrocodone-combination (Vicodin): 127,859,000 prescriptions
- Oxycodone with acetaminophen (generic Percocet): dispensed through prescriptions 32,962,000 times.
- Oxycodone HCL (generic OxyContin): 16,440,000 prescriptions.
- Acetaminophen with codeine: 11,225,000 prescriptions.
- Morphine sulfate: 9,658,000 prescriptions.
- Fentanyl: 6,468,000 prescriptions.
- Brand-name OxyContin: 5,659,000 prescriptions. Adding that total to its generic equivalent wouldn’t change the drug’s third-place ranking.
- Methadone: prescribed 3,860,000 times, a drop of 4,090,000 prescriptions within the preceding year.
- Hydromorphone HCL (generic Dilaudid): 3,587,000 prescriptions.
- Oxymorphone HCL, extended release (Opana ER): with 756,000 prescriptions. , saying that it’s risks outweigh its benefits.
The DEA change is a component of mounting concern over a few national epidemic of prescription abuse. Earlier this year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a study showing that there’s a good variation in opioid prescribing patterns across the state .
The DEA change is a component of mounting concern over a few national epidemic of prescription abuse. Earlier this year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a study showing that there’s a good variation in opioid prescribing patterns across the state .
For instance, doctors in Alabama prescribed 142.9 opioid prescriptions for each 100 population, while doctors in ny prescribed only 59.5 such prescriptions for each 100 population.
But doctors in Maine prescribed buy ultram overnight delivery, the foremost long-acting extended release opioid pain-relievers, and physicians in Delaware prescribed high-dose opioids at the very best rate. Only two states were within the top 10 for all 3 categories, Tennessee and West Virginia .The CDC study used IMS data for 2012.
The newer IMS data provided to HCPLive.com show that since then, total sales of codeine and codeine-combination drugs have dropped from 212,009.000 in 2012 to 201,493,000 in 2013.
Sales of morphine and opium derivatives rose to 22,329,000 in 2013 from 22,033.000 in 2012.
IMS, a billboard service, obtains its data from wholesalers
