As the opioid crisis continues unabated, a federal task force meets next week to review a draft report on managing pain, but dozens of attorneys general worry the final version may be used to unravel prescribing guidelines already issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The draft from the Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force, which has drawn scrutiny for conflicts of interest among some members, covers a lot of ground in attempting to find ways to address acute and chronic pain management: medicines, other medical approaches, overdose prevention, insurance coverage, and treating different patient populations, among other things. Any directive may affect Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. And with more than 5,300 comments filed, reactions are all over the map.
However, a section of the draft report that is devoted specifically to the CDC guideline, which was released in 2016, has sparked pushback from the National Association of Attorneys General. In remarks filed last month, the organization argued that it would be “incomprehensible” to consider “moving away from key components” of the guidelines.
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