Ameritox Provides Educational Support to Clinicians to Help Reduce Opioid Misuse, Abuse and Diversion

BALTIMORE, Feb. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Event details:
February 25, 2012
12 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.
Renaissance Palm Springs Hotel
Catalina/Madera Room
Palm Springs, CA

Ameritox(SM), the nation's leader in pain medication monitoring, will sponsor a safe opioid prescribing symposium highlighting emerging trends and technologies in medication monitoring at the American Academy of Pain Medicine's (AAPM) 28th Annual Meeting in Palm Springs, California.

"For clinicians treating the tens of millions of people suffering from chronic pain, helping patients find safe, effective relief is the ultimate priority," said Dr. Harry Leider, Chief Medical Officer at Ameritox.

The symposium will focus on a new set of expert consensus recommendations, to be presented during a poster session at the meeting, which answer critical questions in pain monitoring. These recommendations are intended to add specifics to previous clinical guidelines, with the goal of providing physicians guidance on how to use urine drug monitoring to improve patient outcomes.

The symposium will also provide attendees with the latest data on the emerging use of urine opioid levels in helping physicians assess patients for adherence to a chronic opioid regimen. This segment will highlight Ameritox research, which resulted in a proprietary monitoring tool, Rx Guardian CD(SM), being made available to clinicians who prescribe opioids to patients with chronic pain to help reduce the risk of opioid misuse, abuse and diversion. Rx Guardian CD(SM) consists of a reference database of more than 1,000 pain patients who were clinically assessed as adherent to their prescription regimens. It then displays the results to allow physicians to see, at a glance, how a specific patient's drug monitoring results compare to patients in the database.

"Physicians are on the front lines of both patient care and drug abuse prevention," Leider said. "Providing tools, supported by quality research, to help physicians evaluate whether their patients take the proper medications as directed should improve patient care and help keep prescription painkillers out of the hands of those who abuse these medications." 

Topics and Faculty include:

New Expert Consensus Recommendations on the Use of Pain Medication Monitoring (Urine Drug Testing)
Steven Passik, PhD and John Peppin, DO, FACP

Use of Urine Opioid Levels to Assist Physician Assessment of Adherence
Harry Leider, MD, FACPE

About Ameritox

Ameritox is the nation's leader in Pain Medication Monitoring Solutions®, offering specialized laboratory testing and reporting services. Ameritox's expertise and innovative science provide physicians with insights and support to enhance and optimize the care of chronic pain patients. Ameritox offers the most thorough pain medication monitoring lab process – Rx Guardian(SM) – with Rx Guardian CD(SM), the only pain medication screening with a proprietary normalization algorithm and a reference database of pain patients assessed for medication adherence. Patient results are compared against this database, helping physicians assess whether patients are taking their pain medications correctly. Monitoring through urine drug testing helps physicians make more informed clinical decisions and manage the risks and complexities associated with prescribing pain medications. Ameritox is headquartered in Baltimore, Md. with laboratory facilities in Midland, Texas and Greensboro, N.C. Ameritox can be found online at www.ameritox.com, on Twitter @Ameritox, or on Facebook at facebook.com/ameritox.

© 2012 Ameritox Ltd. All rights reserved. AMERITOX, the AMERITOX logos, AMERITOX AUTOREMINDER, AMERITOX MEDICATION MONITORING SOLUTIONS, AMERITOX UNIVERSITY, PAIN MEDICATION MONITORING SOLUTIONS, POWERED BY YOUR NEED TO KNOW and PROTECT YOUR PATIENTS. PROTECT YOUR PRACTICE. RX GUARDIAN, RX GUARDIAN CD, and RX GUARDIAN AUTOREMINDER are trademarks of Ameritox.

For more information, contact: Lon Wagner
Ameritox
Office: 336-387-7742
Cell: 757-617-1846
[email protected]

SOURCE Ameritox