Exam Your Medicine Cabinet Before It Kills You

Have you checked your medications lately? Are any medications safe to use after their expiration date or in combination with other medications? What should you do with your old outdated medications? These simple questions can start you on the path to protecting you and your family.

The AMA is offering a guide to assist in safely disposing of your medications. This guide will show you how to dispose of medications safely by keeping them out of local water and protect your children or adults from accidentally ingesting or misusing them.

"Many patients use prescription and over-the-counter medications as part of their health care routine, but if not properly disposed of these otherwise beneficial drugs can be extremely harmful," said AMA President Peter W. Carmel, M.D. "It is easy to accumulate expired or unneeded medications in a medicine cabinet, and Patient Safety Awareness Week provides an excellent opportunity to learn about the best way to get rid of these potential hazards."

The AMA also offers you tools to assist you with keeping records of all your medications and you can contact their physicians to answer your questions. Their medication safety checklist will assist you with keeping records of not only prescription medications but vitamins, your herbal, home remedies and alternative methods you may have read about. With all this information conveniently accumulated you can then supply them to your doctor. The AMA's MyMedications app, available on iTunes, will easily provide a place to file information on your medications, allergies and immunization records which can then be emailed to physicians and family.

"Patients with multiple conditions may see more than one prescribing physician and use other non-prescription medicines, so it is critically important to make sure these treatments are safe together," said Dr. Carmel. "The AMA encourages patients to discuss with their physicians all vitamins and medications, including prescription and over-the-counter, that they are currently taking. The medication safety checklist and MyMedications app provide great ways to start this important discussion and safely manage your medications."

Exam Your Medicine Cabinet Before It Kills You

Have you checked your medications lately? Are any medications safe to use after their expiration date or in combination with other medications? What should you do with your old outdated medications? These simple questions can start you on the path to protecting you and your family.

The AMA is offering a guide to assist in safely disposing of your medications. This guide will show you how to dispose of medications safely by keeping them out of local water and protect your children or adults from accidentally ingesting or misusing them.

"Many patients use prescription and over-the-counter medications as part of their health care routine, but if not properly disposed of these otherwise beneficial drugs can be extremely harmful," said AMA President Peter W. Carmel, M.D. "It is easy to accumulate expired or unneeded medications in a medicine cabinet, and Patient Safety Awareness Week provides an excellent opportunity to learn about the best way to get rid of these potential hazards."

The AMA also offers you tools to assist you with keeping records of all your medications and you can contact their physicians to answer your questions. Their medication safety checklist will assist you with keeping records of not only prescription medications but vitamins, your herbal, home remedies and alternative methods you may have read about. With all this information conveniently accumulated you can then supply them to your doctor. The AMA's MyMedications app, available on iTunes, will easily provide a place to file information on your medications, allergies and immunization records which can then be emailed to physicians and family.

"Patients with multiple conditions may see more than one prescribing physician and use other non-prescription medicines, so it is critically important to make sure these treatments are safe together," said Dr. Carmel. "The AMA encourages patients to discuss with their physicians all vitamins and medications, including prescription and over-the-counter, that they are currently taking. The medication safety checklist and MyMedications app provide great ways to start this important discussion and safely manage your medications."

CMS Wants To Deny Prescription Coverage

CMS or the (Centers for medicare and Medicaid) want to stop prescription drug abuse but the method they have chosen to do so may hurt patients who really need the medicine. Their proposal would allow medicare to deny Medicare Part D medication coverage to people they suspect of prescription abuse.

The AMA is worried that this is going to cause problems for people who are really in need of medical treatment. "Physicians, not health insurers, have the expertise to make decisions about which medications a patient should receive," AMA President Peter W. Carmel, MD, said in a news release. "Medicare patients who are seriously ill or in severe pain should not be unjustly denied the medications prescribed by their physician." The AMA agrees that misusing prescriptions is a serious problem but that CMS is not qualified to make the decision if someone is abusing their prescriptions or not.

The AMA offers a solution that drug plans provide claim information to physicians. They believe in a real-time prescription information for doctors and increased funds for drug-monitoring programs.

Stop Plans To Weaken Prescription Drug Access For Medicare Patients

Provisions that allow Medicare drug plans to deny drug coverage to patients when they suspect prescription misuse was being proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). However, the American Medical Association (AMA) were against the proposed policy. The AMA stated its concerns that the policy would instead prevent patients from receiving Medicare Part D coverage for medications prescribed to them by their physician. The AMA were strongly against this idea and making their statement that "Physicians, not health insurers, have the expertise to make decisions about which medications a patient should receive."

Suggestions from the AMA include encouraging health insurers to fully share information so that prescribing physicians will know all of a patients' medications, increasing the funding for prescription drug monitoring programs, as well as for upgrades that provide real time prescription information to physicians at the point of care.

The AMA held strong in their beliefs that giving health insurers the ability to stop insuring medications prescribed by a physician is not the answer in dealing with the misuse of prescription drugs.

Stop Plans To Weaken Prescription Drug Access For Medicare Patients

Provisions that allow Medicare drug plans to deny drug coverage to patients when they suspect prescription misuse was being proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). However, the American Medical Association (AMA) were against the proposed policy. The AMA stated its concerns that the policy would instead prevent patients from receiving Medicare Part D coverage for medications prescribed to them by their physician. The AMA were strongly against this idea and making their statement that "Physicians, not health insurers, have the expertise to make decisions about which medications a patient should receive."

Suggestions from the AMA include encouraging health insurers to fully share information so that prescribing physicians will know all of a patients' medications, increasing the funding for prescription drug monitoring programs, as well as for upgrades that provide real time prescription information to physicians at the point of care.

The AMA held strong in their beliefs that giving health insurers the ability to stop insuring medications prescribed by a physician is not the answer in dealing with the misuse of prescription drugs.