A number of medical software companies have joined a growing movement of companies to stop providing prescription opioids to doctors.
The move comes amid a national opioid crisis that is threatening to drive up costs for millions of Americans, including some who are dying of overdoses.
“The opioid crisis is real and it is serious,” said Paul G. Faraone, chief executive officer of medical technology company HyperX.
“But our commitment to treating patients with care is bigger than anything we can do individually.”
HyperX, which recently became the latest company to join the national opioid response, is providing free screenwriting and editing software to doctors to help them manage opioid prescriptions.
The company has already worked with hundreds of doctors and pharmacies to reduce the prescription supply.
The software is also being used to help doctors identify patients with pain or who are not responding to other treatments.
The software is available in more than a hundred countries, and many more are on the way, according to Gannett Company.
The companies say they are working with doctors to reduce opioid prescriptions and prescribe opioids more slowly, but the industry has faced criticism that its policies are unnecessarily costly.
Farrone said that a recent study found that prescriptions of opioids increased in the last year by nearly 50% in many states.
“It’s a real challenge,” he said.
The push to stop the opioid epidemic comes after a number of major drug companies announced their plans to cut back on the supply of opioids. “
Our goal is to reduce it, not increase it.”
The push to stop the opioid epidemic comes after a number of major drug companies announced their plans to cut back on the supply of opioids.
Last month, Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drugmaker, said it would cut the number of people on its prescription opioids program from more than 20 million to about 11 million, as the country grapples with an opioid overdose crisis.
In March, General Motors Co. said it was cutting back on its own prescription opioid program and was exploring other options.
Earlier this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics, which represents physicians, urged Congress to address the opioid prescription problem, saying the crisis posed “an acute public health threat that requires comprehensive, targeted, and sustained efforts.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that about 11.3 million Americans are addicted to prescription opioids, more than triple the number in 2015.
About 10.3% of the country’s 2.5 million doctors were treating opioid-dependent patients, according in 2016, according the CDC.
“We can’t wait to get rid of opioids,” Farronesaid.
“It’s the right thing to do.”
More than 10 million Americans have died from prescription opioid overdoses, according a report by the National Institute on Drug Abuse released in October.
