The opioid crisis has been upon us for years now, and we are now seeing the problem become more pervasive, with more than 90 deaths per day in the U.S. due to this scourge. The president recently said he would be declaring a public health emergency (which would free up some funds) but has not done so as of this writing. The public health threat is so persistent that it calls for responses on many levels, and those responses are coming. Some have been in place for a while, some are more recent. These responses may be broken down into a number of different categories:
- Broader availability of naloxone (antidote) and related training to first responders, health care providers and the general public (though of course in our litigious society, applicability of Good Samaritan laws to naloxone use by laypersons is a consideration)
- Medication-assisted treatment following acute episodes (emergency room visits)
- States imposing limits on prescribing and dispensing, mandating education and other innovations (for example, Massachusetts’ first-in-the nation opioids law (including the first state law limiting most opioid prescriptions to a seven-day supply), enacted in 2015, with a follow-up law enacted in 2016 that among other things offers a system for recording and communicating a voluntary opiate “opt-out” for individuals); and limiting pharma payments to physicians in order to discourage incentives for high-prescriber status (current proposal in New Jersey)
- Licensure and certification bodies imposing limits on prescribing and dispensing (state boards of registration in medicine, e.g., Ohio) and articulating management and operations frameworks for implementing those limits (Joint Commission)
- PBMs establishing limits for dispensing (Express Scripts, CVS Caremark)
- Payors imposing limits on payment (see, e.g., Cigna‘s opioid abuse detection and prevention program)
- The FDA mandating prescriber training (it is also being urged to ban high-dose formulations)
- Providers developing programs to limit the use of opioids in pain management along with specific targets on reduction in use (e.g., Intermountain)
- Professional and industry associations providing training of clinicians in pain management without opioids, or with limited opioid use (e.g., Massachusetts Medical Society, Colorado Hospital Association)
The overarching goal is to eliminate the use of opiates for all but the most critical short-term needs (limiting prescriptions to a seven-day supply) and medically-appropriate chronic and palliative pain management. There are alternative pain relief drugs — and a wide variety of other treatments for pain, ranging from TENS to meditation to VR. Taken together, the initiatives highlighted and linked to above represent a good start. Of course, we need more than a good start, as the US consumes a wildly disproportionate share of opiates compared to other countries — follow link for some facts and figures — for predictable reasons of economics, politics and culture, and we are paying a staggering price in excess morbidity and mortality and in secondary effects (the effects on family and community).
