Operation UNITE receives praises for National Rx Drug Abuse Summit

Ameritox(SM), the nation's leader in pain medication monitoring, commends Unlawful Narcotics Investigations, Treatment and Education, Inc. (Operation UNITE), the organizers of the inaugural National Rx Drug Abuse Summit, on its coordination of a national forum to address the prescription drug abuse epidemic. The Summit will be held April 10-12 in Orlando, Florida.

"As the nation's leader in Pain Medication Monitoring Solutions^®, Ameritox, like Operation UNITE, is committed to understanding the reasons behind the prescription drug abuse epidemic and working with state and Federal advocates toward a rapid and effective solution," said Dr. Harry Leider, Chief Medical Officer, Ameritox. "In our industry leadership role, Ameritox is charged with providing physicians who prescribe opioid therapy with effective tools, supported by quality research, to help ensure that proper medications are getting to the millions of chronic pain patients who need it.  In this way, we support physicians who treat patients with chronic pain and their efforts to reduce the misuse, abuse and diversion of prescription opioid medication."

Medication monitoring through urine drug testing is a critical tool in helping physicians provide the best care for patients receiving long term treatment with opioids. In February, Ameritox announced its support of a new set of expert consensus recommendations designed to bring uniformity to the use of pain medication monitoring and add specific recommendations to previous clinical guidelines. The recommendations also provided guidance on how to use urine drug monitoring to improve patient outcomes.

The leading service offered by Ameritox, Rx Guardian CD(SM), is a proprietary monitoring tool available to clinicians who prescribe opioids to patients with chronic pain aimed at helping to reduce the risk of opioid misuse, abuse and diversion. Rx Guardian CD 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 in an innovative format, allowing physicians to see, at a glance, how a specific patient's results compare to patients in the database.

Ameritox recently launched the Rx Guardian INSIGHT(SM) Report, a tool developed with input from pain management physicians and designed to provide a concise summary of the most important elements of a patient's medication monitoring results. The report helps clinicians rapidly assess a patient's medication monitoring results over time by showing a chronology of previous Rx Guardian CD results.

"The number one cause of accidental death in the country is drug overdose, and prescription drug overdoses account for a significant number of these avoidable tragedies," Dr. Leider said. "The prescription drug abuse epidemic is the driving force behind the Ameritox commitment to work closely with physicians who prescribe these powerful medications.  We recognize that physicians are on the front lines of treating pain and reducing prescription drug misuse, abuse and diversion."