Drug Screening in Primary Care (How to Order, Interpretation, etc)

Primary care clinicians have a responsibility to understand urine drug testing so they can order testing in appropriate circumstances. Urine drug testing can be used to verify compliance with prescribed medications, identify patients who may be using illicit or non-prescribed substances, or monitor patients in recovery from substance use disorder. Point-of-care testing, immunoassay, and mass spectrometry are 3 common methods for drug testing. Once results are obtained, they must be interpreted with care and a treatment plan for the patient must be developed in light of the findings.