Can you prescribe medications?

[Bluebolt]

So what I'm wondering is what type of work you may be able to do as a CRNA outside the OR or L&D unit. Can you work in an outpatient clinic, perhaps doing epidurals for back pain patients, sport injuries in an outpatient office or prescribing pain meds and management in a chronic pain clinic?

I'm just curious beyond administering anesthetics in an OR setting, can you prescribe pain relieving meds and administer treatments in an outpatient setting?

Also if you can do these jobs are these positions paid well and available to the typical CRNA?

[cayenne06, MSN, CNM]

I work with a CRNA when I am at one of our surgical sites. They don't prescribe any meds (the clinician doing the procedure does all post-op med management). The CRNAs I worked with when I was an L&D RN would order post-op pain meds, but in an outpatient setting the anesthesia provider is usually not providing any care after the procedure, and it wouldn't make sense for them to have the responsibility of managing the medications of patients that they are not going to follow.

Obviously not a CRNA here (lol), but I would imagine that in a clinic where you are providing ongoing care for patients, that you would be able to prescribe.

[DAN CRNA, CRNA]

So what I'm wondering is what type of work you may be able to do as a CRNA outside the OR or L&D unit. Can you work in an outpatient clinic, perhaps doing epidurals for back pain patients, sport injuries in an outpatient office or prescribing pain meds and management in a chronic pain clinic?

I'm just curious beyond administering anesthetics in an OR setting, can you prescribe pain relieving meds and administer treatments in an outpatient setting?

Also if you can do these jobs are these positions paid well and available to the typical CRNA?

It is unusual for a CRNA to be doing pain medicine, even though it may happen in certain parts of the country. We have prescriptive authority, although we don't use it outside of the hospital setting.

[Bluebolt]

Thanks for the input guys. The only way I'd have to worry about prescribing in an outpatient situation would be in a pain clinic. "Dr Feelgood" isn't my style.