CHICAGO — The American Medical Association (AMA) today applauded new actions by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to combat the country's opioid epidemic. The new steps include a final rule to increase patient access to comprehensive treatment for opioid use disorder by allowing physicians to prescribe medication-assisted treatment (MAT) with buprenorphine to significantly more patients than the prior limit.

 "The AMA applauds the critical steps announced today by Secretary Burwell to attack the opioid epidemic that is ravaging communities of all shapes and sizes across our country," said AMA President Dr. Andrew W. Gurman. "Medication-assisted treatment is proven effective, but for too long, too many patients have lacked access to this treatment. Today's final rule is an important step that nearly triples the number of patients practitioners may treat with a waiver, but more must be done to leverage trained physicians to close the treatment gap."

Additionally, HHS announced:

• It is launching more than a dozen new scientific studies on opioid use and pain management to help fill knowledge gaps and inform efforts to end this epidemic;
• A proposal to eliminate pressure on physicians to prescribe opioid analgesics inappropriately by severing the link between hospital payment rates and patient satisfaction scores with the prescribing of pain medication during their hospital stay; and
• It is seeking input from the medical profession and other health care stakeholders to improve the effectiveness and reach of prescriber education programs on opioid analgesics.

The AMA has advocated for years for the new CMS proposal to remove Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) pain management questions from the hospital payment scoring calculation. Supporters of eliminating the questions said eradication or total resolution of a patient's pain is often misguided and puts inappropriate pressure on clinical pain management practices that can encourage the overuse of opioids, especially since other approaches may not be covered by insurance.

"Treating pain is a priority for physicians, and we know that there are many ways to do so," Dr. Gurman said. "Judging health care facilities on the subjective measure of how well pain is treated is an overly-simplistic approach to measuring clinical effectiveness, and the AMA appreciates this proposal to sever the direct link between payment and pain management."

The AMA supports bipartisan legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Alex X. Mooney in February to eliminate the potential penalty on physicians who refuse to overprescribe opioids. H.R. 4499, the Promoting Responsible Opioid Prescribing Act, would have the same effect as CMS's HCAHPS proposal but with the weight of Congress behind it.