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LTC leaders urge Senate to reconsider pain medication regulations

Contemporary Long-Term Care Weekly, April 1, 2010

The March 24 U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing, titled “The War on Drugs Meets the War on Pain: Nursing Home Residents Caught in the Crossfire,” has received a lot of negative attention from the long-term care industry. Both the American Association of Homes & Services for the Aging (AAHSA) and the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) submitted written testimonies urging the committee to address the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) interpretation of the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) that creates a barrier to providing nursing home residents with pain medication in a timely matter.

Nursing home physicians typically work for multiple facilities and are not always in the facility to provide written orders for prescriptions. Because of this, physicians sometimes communicate new orders for the resident over the telephone, especially when a resident’s condition changes quickly. When this occurs, a nurse records the physician’s verbal order in the resident’s chart. This documentation is known as a “chart order.” If this chart order calls for a new prescription, the nurse faxes the chart order to a long-term care pharmacy for dispensing. Using the chart order to fill and dispense a prescription ensures “that medications are acquired on a timely basis to meet residents’ changing and emergent medical needs,” according to an AAHSA press release.

To read the complete story and to post your reaction, visit MDSCentral.

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