Johnson bill would take pressure off doctors to prescribe opioid painkillers

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) introduced bipartisan legislation on Thursday aimed at alleviating the pressure placed on doctors to prescribe opioid painkillers by Medicare patient surveys.

Currently, patient survey results are factored into Medicare reimbursement rates for hospitals. That has raised questions about whether physicians are being pressured to prescribe opioids in order to obtain higher patient satisfaction scores.

Under the bipartisan Promoting Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP) Act, S. 2758, pain management questions would not be factored into Medicare reimbursement rate calculations.

“The Senate’s recent passage of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act was an important step, but there is still more we can do.” Johnson said. “The government may mean well by linking payments to patient satisfaction, but there is real, bipartisan concern that specific questions about pain management place inappropriate pressure on doctors. Physicians must be free to exercise their best judgment when prescribing the proper level of pain medication – that’s what patients and taxpayers expect.”  

U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), John Barrasso (R-WY) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) cosponsored the PROP Act.

“This bipartisan legislation will ensure we don’t put undue pressure on our prescribers who are on the front lines of this epidemic,” Manchin said. “This simple change to the Affordable Care Act will strike a harmful provision that pressures doctors and hospitals to prescribe narcotic pain medicine and will reduce the risk of addiction by reducing opioid medication prescriptions for patients who don’t need these dangerous drugs. This is critical in our fight to prevent the misuse and abuse of opioids and I’m glad to join my colleague Sen. Johnson in introducing this important legislation.”

Barrasso, who worked as a practicing doctor for 25 years, said that treating pain is one of the most difficult things that doctors have to do.

“Doctors should prescribe pain medication based on their best clinical judgements — not because they’re worried about the results of a government survey,” Barrasso said.

Blumenthal noted that Johnson’s bill could help stop legitimate prescriptions from turning into addictions by relieving pressure on doctors to prescribe them.

“The over-prescribing of opioid painkillers has made the United States the epicenter of the deadly prescription opioid epidemic, and we must address it,” Blumenthal said. “While the recently passed Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act is a meaningful step toward ending the deadly opioid epidemic, the critical legislation we are introducing today would build on that momentum by helping to prevent addiction in the first place.”