- Requiring prescribers to verbally inform patients or parents of patients about the risks of addiction and potential alternatives before an opioid painkiller is prescribed. Prescribers should also get written acknowledgment that this conversation occurred. A law we championed that contained these provisions was recently adopted in RI. Our next steps are to work with the Health Department and the medical community to ensure robust implementation
- Requiring pill and dose limits in initial outpatient opiate-based pain reliever prescriptions. This policy is now contained in a recently passed Rhode Island law. It is critical that this law be enforced.
- As the Office of National Drug Control Policy recommends, physicians should be required
to do 16 hours of training on best prescribing practices every three years as a condition of being able to prescribe opioids. A recently passed Rhode Island law mandates that the Health Director put in place a required training program. It should be based on these expert recommendations. Since continuing education generally is a required of all physicians, this is in no way onerous. - Boosting compliance with the requirement that doctors and other prescribers check the Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) database before prescribing an opiate. This limits doctor-shopping.
- Mounting a comprehensive public education campaign with the goal of getting all Rhode Islanders to empty their medicine chests of any unused opiate-based pain relievers. In Rhode Island, nearly one-in-five 12th graders have used painkillers without a doctors’ prescription, according to RI Kids Count—and they often get them from their parent’s medicine chest.
- Updating the anti-drug curriculum in our public schools to reflect the best practices on how to inform teenagers about the dangers of abusing opiate-based pain relievers and their illegal street cousin, heroin.