Reviews and Perspective with Hobart Lee: Asthma Hack
Hobart Lee, MD, and Heidi James, MD
Hoby and Heidi discuss a tip from Hoby’s colleague for keeping tabs on our patients’ asthma management.
- It can be hard to keep track of how well our patients are managing their asthma.
- The amount of PRN medications patients use can be a surrogate marker.
- One albuterol canister contains over 200 doses, so they should not be burning through this quickly if their asthma is well controlled.
- If they’re calling for albuterol refills after 1 month—yikes, that’s a lot of PRN albuterol!
- Hoby’s colleague suggested not providing refills on albuterol prescriptions (unlike the year’s worth that many of us prescribe) so that our patients need to contact us more often. This will help us keep closer tabs on their asthma.
- Limiting refills to monitor disease control can be used for different medications and conditions.
Ian L. - November 6, 2020 3:46 PM
Sadly with repeats for anti hypertensives particularly calcium antagonists you have to check for depression .
Heidi J., MD - November 13, 2020 3:49 PM
We hadn't heard of this potential link. Dr. Lee found this article that highlights the potential link https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.116.08188
Ian L. - November 19, 2020 6:43 PM
It is also about giving a lot of repeats to patients a few of whom are in a very bad mental space might hoard them and then take large amounts . Asthma and Hypertension are common conditions and a lot of people get prescriptions for these -some will have depression ..