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Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing

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Physicians group urges review of pain-management standards

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A group of physicians urge the Joint Commission and the CMS to end policies that the group says can lead to opioid overprescribing and addiction.  The action came as the nation tries to deal with the opioid epidemic.
Signatories asked the Joint Commission to re-examine its Pain Management Standards — which once helped push the idea of pain as the “fifth vital sign” — and asked the  CMS to get rid of patient-satisfaction questions about pain from its reimbursement procedures.

The letters were sent by Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP), other medical and consumer groups and by senior health officials from Pennsylvania, Vermont, Alaska and Rhode Island.

 


What led to the opioid crisis

 

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This riveting article in Modern Healthcare explains what led up to the current opioid crisis and how it’s forcing providers to reconsider  addictive narcotics and how they help patients manage pain.

It goes back to  1996, when the pharmaceutical firm Purdue Pharma “launched a campaign informing patients and doctors that a new, {allegedly} safe drug was available to combat pain that was not the result of cancer, surgery or trauma.

“This pill could relieve chronic back pain caused by daily physical demands. And it was {allegedly} safe because it would slowly release its narcotic ingredients, making it unlikely to become addictive, it said.

“The drug caused a cultural shift in the way physicians treated pain and how Americans viewed it,”  the publication noted.

“It was this change in prescribing practices that would lead to our public health crisis,” Andrew Kolodny,  M.D., executive director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing told Modern Healthcare.


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