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Pain can be anything like a dull ache or a sharp stab and may vary from mild to extreme. If you have chronic pain, there is a good chance that your doctor prescribed some medication, such as opioid medication. The chances are also high that you may have signed a pain management agreement.

These agreements are usually called pain contracts, so it’s important to understand what you are being requested of you before signing the contract. This post discusses what to do before signing the best pain management contract.

Understanding a pain management agreement

A pain medication agreement from the best Maryland Pain Management Specialists refers to a contract that you make between you and your doctor. The purpose of this contract is to make sure that you as a patient are taking drugs exactly as your doctor prescribed.

Ideally, this contract is designed to protect you from drug abuse and also protects your doctor in case you abuse the medication in some way. Years ago, it was quite rare to have pain medication agreements. The pain management specialists and the pain clinics were the only ones that needed them.

However, with the increase in drug addictions, and the rigid enforcement by the drug enforcement agencies on doctors who usually prescribe the medications, more family and general practitioners are also required to make patients who take long-term pain medication sign them.

Keep in mind that the details of each contract can vary from one doctor to another, though there are a couple of elements that are common throughout. Here are some things you should know about these pain management contracts before you sign them:

You should take medication as prescribed

You need to agree to take the drugs exactly as prescribed by your doctor. This means that you should take the same amount prescribed by your doctor at the same time intervals or you can risk the agreement from being terminated. Therefore, if you feel like you don’t have to take medication on a certain day, you must still take it. Besides, you cannot reduce the intake or even save medication when you have low pain so that you can take it later.

Likewise, if you feel like you need more medication on a high-pain day, you must be ready to do without more dose. This is especially true unless your doctor gives you another new prescription. Simply put, you can’t change the dose yourself under any circumstances.

Remember that many doctors tend to do drug testing, so if they discover that you are taking too much, they can think that you may be abusing the medication. If you also have too little medication in your body, they can assume that you are giving it to another person or even selling it.

There is permission to do drug testing

You need to agree to have random drug testing. This is usually part of the contract because many doctors like to make sure that you are not abusing the medication. Also, they want to ensure that you are the only person using the medication.

Therefore, they can do random drug tests and measure the amount of drug that is in your body. Remember that there is an increase in prescription drug abuse, so doctors just want to be more careful.