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KANSAS CITY, MONTH (AP) – A new Missouri law limits the amount and types of pain medications that dentists can prescribe after studies have revealed that painkillers prescribed as a result of routine dental work contributed to a national epidemic of opioid dependence.
Governor Mike Parson signed this month's bill which requires dentists to not prescribe any opioid more than the equivalent of 10 regular Vicodin tablets per day and to not prescribe any extended-release opioid such as # 39; OxyContin.
Dan Kessler, president of the Missouri Dental Association, said the professional group was working with lawmakers on the wording of the bill.
"I think we are all for limitations and not to prescribe or even use substances like hydrocodone," Kessler told Kansas City Star. Hydrocodone is an ingredient in painkillers, including Vicodin.
Dentists who do not comply with the requirements of the new law will have to document why in the patient's medical record. The literature exception exists for patients who have developed opioid tolerance and need more to effectively relieve pain.
If dentists do not register prescriptions outside the boundaries of the new law, the state dental board could investigate and possibly withdraw their license, Kessler said.
"I hate to say that it's about honor, but it's sort of like it," Kessler said. "But if you're a repeat offender and things are going on, as if people are coming out, then you're exposed."
According to the American Dental Association, dentists have prescribed 6.4% of all prescriptions in the United States for opioids in 2012. Moreover, a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in December showed that opioid prescriptions by dentists play an important role in the addiction of teenagers and young adults.
The study found that people between the ages of 16 and 25 at which the first opioids had been prescribed by a dentist were more than 10 times more likely than their peers to be diagnosed with abuse. opioids within one year. Adolescents and young adults are more sensitive to addiction because their brains are still developing and dentists are the most common opioid prescribers in adolescents because it is at that time that the most people get their wisdom teeth removed.
"This legislation will minimize the critical role in the exposure of this vulnerable group to abuse," said John Dane, director of dental services at the Missouri Department of Health and Seniors' Services.
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