![Does Reducing Opioids Prescribed After Knee Surgery Be Beneficial Does Reducing Opioids Prescribed After Knee Surgery Be Beneficial](https://images.medindia.net/health-images/1200_1000/crucial-gene-explains-how-tolerance.jpg)
Opioid Prescriptions After Total Joint Arthroplasty
In recent years, doctors have given their post-surgery patients larger doses of opioids to avoid patients frequently calling their doctors for refills.‘Among total knee and hip arthroplasty patients given larger prescriptions of opioids that can result in an excess of the medication in their home after recovery is over.’
Tweet it Now
“The goal was to come up with a quality improvement program that would decrease the dosage of opioids given to patients leaving the hospital,” said Dailey. Dailey and colleagues utilized private and Medicare insurance data to create a large, nationally representative cohort of hip and knee arthroplasty patients. The initial opioid prescription size was then correlated with risk of refill, and results showed that patients who were prescribed less opioids did not require more refills.
Source-Eurekalert