Medicare is putting into place on April 2nd a rule that will deny payment for long-term, high-dose opioid prescriptions. The change is designed to limit opioid addiction risks, but many patients, patient advocates, physicians and scientists oppose the move as arbitrary and harmful.
A new social media tool kit from the American Medical Association can help healthcare providers share stories about obstacles experienced by their patients experience when seeking care for pain and/or substance use. Providers can add their voices to calls for improved access to comprehensive, multidisciplinary care for pain, and high quality, evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders.
News from the American Pain Society Scientific Summit
Greater understanding of complex, underlying pain mechanisms, which are different in most pain patients, holds promise to improve the quality and precision of clinical pain assessments and help foster successful treatment outcomes.
With a lack of government response to the opioid crisis, some private industries have stepped in to address the gap. Insurers such as Aetna are working to reduce opioid use, addiction, and overdose deaths by their insured, and drug lobbying groups are pushing for new opioid guidelines.
APS Scientific Program Chair, Tonya Palermo, PhD, dives into details regarding the upcoming APS Scientific Summit, March 4-6 at the Disneyland® Hotel in Anaheim.
Increased scrutiny of opioid prescribing for patients with chronic pain has led providers and healthcare organizations to consider opioid-dose reductions, known as tapering.
Are physicians too worried about over prescribing opioids? APS Board Member, Ed Michna MD JD BS Pharm, has some concern.
APS Board Member, Ed Michna MD, quoted by the Orlando Sentinel on the move by Florida Blue to stop covering OxyContin.
Many patients use extracts of the plant kratom for pain relief and treatment of opioid withdrawal and dependence symptoms. However, the FDA has released a summary statement on the lack of evidence for kratom in pain relief and opioid treatment, and highlight some of the dangers of kratom use, including potential seizures and liver damage.
Nonpharmacologic Management of Acute Non-specific Low Back Pain: The Role of Thermal Therapies. The focus of this call is to encourage organizations to apply for educational grants to provide programming targeted to healthcare providers caring for patients with acute non-specific low back pain.
Recent research studies demonstrates that the mind, along with other nonpharmacological remedies, can be used to manage and relieve many kinds of chronic pain.
Researchers find that the Sigma2 Receptor can reduce neuropathic pain in animals when stimulated with a novel synthetic agonist (activating drug).
APS Board member, Ed Michna, JD MD PharmD, discusses opioid safety for prescribers and red flags for addiction.
PCORI seeks to fund multiple high-quality clinical studies that compare the effectiveness of evidence-based treatments for relief of common symptoms experienced by patients living with advanced illness.
Dr. Collins and NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow outline a new public-private partnership initiative to address the opioid crisis. This new initiative will focus on three scientific areas: overdose-reversal and prevention interventions, new medications to treat opioid addiction, and non-addictive interventions for chronic pain. N Engl J Med. Online: May 31, 2017.
Experts weigh in on the findings of a study comparing patients with sacroiliac (SI) joint pain who received either conservative measures or denervation procedure with a group of patients who received a minimally invasive SI joint fusion.
Self-management programs are teaching veterans with chronic pain to become more active, manage symptoms, reduce stigma and frustration, and minimize depression and other mood disorders, according to a VA researcher speaking today at the American Pain Society Annual Scientific Conference.
Pressures on primary care doctors to move away from opioid pain management are increasing, but practitioners need practical, evidence-based information on how to employ multidisciplinary pain care successfully in everyday clinical practice.
Treating the whole person and not just the pain has been a mantra of the American Pain Society (APS) for decades. In his keynote address at the organization’s annual scientific meeting, holistic medicine expert David Katz, MD, director of the Preventative Research Center at Yale University, called for clinicians to stop relying exclusively on pain medications and adopt patient-centered, holistic approaches for treating chronic pain patients.
Surgery is the cause for chronic pain in nearly 1 in 4 individuals who endure persistent pain conditions. Understanding pre-operative and post-op factors that influence post-surgical pain management success may provide clues in preventing progression to chronic pain after surgery, according to research presented at the American Pain Society (APS) Annual Scientific Conference.
