Physicians say the shift to telehealth visits during the Covid-19 pandemic has limited their ability to determine whether patients are at risk of misusing or are already misusing controlled substances prescribed to them, such as opioids, according to a report released Monday by Quest Diagnostics.
The Secaucus, New Jersey, diagnostics company, meanwhile, found that 48% of the more than 475,000 clinical drug monitoring tests it processed last year showed signs of drug misuse, including potentially dangerous drug combinations. Positive results for non-prescribed fentanyl increased by 35% during the pandemic, from 4.3% of samples to 5.8%, according to Quest’s data.
Quest surveyed more than 500 primary care doctors across
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