Fentanyl Patch Program Gaining Momentum

For the first time the Essex County Medical Society will be pushing the patch-for-patch fentanyl program at its annual conference next month. It's not mandatory, but helps ensure fentanyl patches are not sold or re-used if the old ones are being returned. Essex County Medical Society VP Dr. Amit Bagga says narcotics, like fentanyl, are "occasionally" useful for pain. "Local MDs are now becoming increasingly supportive of this new patch-for-patch program to assist with ensuring narcotic use is appropriate ," Bagga says. "It's always sad to hear of the loss of an innocent life who accidentally ingested some used narcotic." A simple solution, he says, would be for all doctors to include the patch-for-patch program on the prescription. "This would indicate to the pharmacist that there would be no way to achieve a new batch of fentanyl patches, unless the old ones that were untampered were returned," Bagga explains. Patch abuse in the region isn't an epidemic, but a serious problem that isn't going away. "They're isolated cases, but they're important enough that we would really rather deal with it proactively," Bagga says. It's an issue of awareness, he says, not reluctance from the medical community to participate in this program.