New state laws in Michigan, Florida and Tennessee limit the amount of opioids physicians can prescribe for acute pain, according to USA Today.
Here are five things to know:
1. Starting July 1, Michigan physicians are banned from prescribing more than a seven-day supply of opioid medication to patients suffering from short-term pain.
2. Florida's law limits physicians to prescribing a three-day opioid supply for acute pain. Physicians and pharmacists are also required to consult Florida's state prescription drug monitoring database to review a patient's prescription history.
3. In Tennessee, pharmacists can now only partially fill prescriptions for no more than half the number of days it's written for. Patients requiring painkillers after surgery are limited to a 20-day supply, also requiring physicians to document the specific reasons for the patient being prescribed opioids.
4. Most patient with acute pain don't need to be on opioid medications for longer than seven days, according to Nabil Sibai, MD, an anasthesiologist and chief of pain services at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. "There's a lot of data out there that shows that for most, at least 90 percent of acute pain episodes, patients are only going to require three to seven days of opioids."
5. The idea behind the multistate laws aims at making prescribing opioids less accessible, which also lessens the chance of people abusing them.
More articles on opioids:
MetroHealth cuts opioid prescribing by 3M pills in 18 months
4 ways Cook County Health and Hospitals System is addressing opioid addiction
Pain treatment through 'medical exercise' not opioids