"Health & Medical News"

Washington — Doctors who want to go paperless when ordering drugs for their Medicare patients now have a set of federal standards on how to do it. Those who are prescribing electronically already have a year in which to become compliant with the rules.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on April 2 released final e-prescribing regulations for Medicare Part D. Under the rules, physicians and pharmacies will not be required to use electronic prescriptions but must follow the new standards if they do.

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Louisiana physicians who were getting roped into the state’s lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company won a recent victory in their effort to defend their patients’ privacy. But doctors’ involvement in the case may not be over just yet.

The Louisiana attorney general is suing Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc., owned by Johnson & Johnson, for alleged illegal off-label promotion of Risperdal (risperidone). The state also claims the drug manufacturer defrauded Louisiana’s Medicaid program, which reimbursed for the drug.

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One physician’s faxed order to discontinue hydrocodone, marketed as Anexsia, was misread by the pharmacist as an order to discontinue Arixtra, an anticoagulant. Another doctor intended to electronically order clonidine, an antihypertensive, but accidentally ordered the sedative clonazepam because both appeared as “CLON” on the computer screen.

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One physician’s faxed order to discontinue hydrocodone, marketed as Anexsia, was misread by the pharmacist as an order to discontinue Arixtra, an anticoagulant. Another doctor intended to electronically order clonidine, an antihypertensive, but accidentally ordered the sedative clonazepam because both appeared as “CLON” on the computer screen.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]

One physician’s faxed order to discontinue hydrocodone, marketed as Anexsia, was misread by the pharmacist as an order to discontinue Arixtra, an anticoagulant. Another doctor intended to electronically order clonidine, an antihypertensive, but accidentally ordered the sedative clonazepam because both appeared as “CLON” on the computer screen.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]

One physician’s faxed order to discontinue hydrocodone, marketed as Anexsia, was misread by the pharmacist as an order to discontinue Arixtra, an anticoagulant. Another doctor intended to electronically order clonidine, an antihypertensive, but accidentally ordered the sedative clonazepam because both appeared as “CLON” on the computer screen.

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Patients taking ibuprofen for pain and aspirin to reduce their chances of a second stroke may not be receiving the full benefit of their prevention efforts, according to a study in The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology in January.

Researchers assessed the combined effect of these two drugs on 10 healthy volunteers and 18 others who were using the medications for pain relief and stroke risk reduction. The blood-thinning effect of the aspirin was blunted in the healthy participants, while those who were attempting to prevent a stroke appeared to be resistant to the effects of aspirin until ibuprofen was discontinued. Also, 13 people in the latter group experienced a stroke while taking these two drugs together over a 27-month period.

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Washington — Most physicians are prepared to meet the April 1 federal deadline for writing many Medicaid prescriptions on tamper-resistant pads, according to medical, pharmacist and other organizations. But these groups continue to reach out to doctors who may be unaware of, or confused about, the law.

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Washington — Drug firms would have a more direct route to physicians when it comes to spreading the word about new research findings for off-label uses of drugs and devices, if a new Food and Drug Administration proposal is finalized.

The proposal, which was published in the Feb. 20 Federal Register Read the rest of this entry »

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Washington — Physician relationships with medical device makers came under fire at a Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing last month. So far, legislation is focused on manufacturers’ conduct, but lawmakers and enforcement agencies expressed concern about doctors’ potential conflicts of interest as well.

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