Ten-year old, Baltimore-based Ameritox is a leader in pain prescription monitoring.They're in the business of helping physicians monitor pain medication patients via a series of rigorous checks and balances for compliance with healthcare rules and regulations.
Ameritox processes thousands of specimens daily in their laboratory facilities in Midland, TX.
RxGuardian is their core product, which helps assess whether patients are taking their pain medication consistent with the dosage prescribed by their physicians. RxGuardian reveals far more than whether a patient is taking the prescribed drug or illegal drugs. The firm released a new version of RxGuardian in January of 2009.
From www.freepatentsonline.com: The firm has United States Patent Application 20080183503, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING TOXICOLOGY REPORTS, dated 07/31/2008:The present disclosure provides methods and apparatuses for generating toxicology reports. Using the methods and apparatus disclosed herein, physicians can more easily understand toxicological lab test results. Physicians receive a toxicology report that explains, in plain language, the toxicological lab test results. A rules engine provides rules for interpreting the toxicological lab test results. Detailed explanations are associated with the rules, and the explanations appear on the toxicology report. The toxicology report greatly reduces the need for the physician to call the toxicology scientist.
SUMMARY: Ameritox lives in a big market opportunity: Getting Pain Med Usage Right.
About 33% of patients are currently taking more medication than prescribed, and 77% are not taking pain medications in strict compliance with their doctor’s instructions, per a study of 200,000 long-term chronic pain patients by the firm.
Further, some 11% of all urine samples contain traces of illicit substances, such as cocaine or marijuana. Some 37% of the samples don't contain any of the prescribed pain medication at all. The study also revealed that 30% of patient samples contained a medication not prescribed by the patient’s doctor, and found that 13% of the samples contained a dosage below the expected range.
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