Following advocacy by U.S. Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Susan Collins (R-ME), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made a policy change that could eliminate any financial incentive for health care providers to overprescribe pain medications.
The senators have led efforts to remove pain management questions from patient surveys tied to hospital reimbursement rates because they could inadvertently encourage opioid treatments and contribute to the nation’s opioid epidemic. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the final rule.
“While we must ensure that pain is properly managed and that patients receive appropriate care, we must also recognize that many individuals who are struggling with an opioid use disorder first misused prescription opioids,” Ayotte said.
“During several roundtables I held in New Hampshire to discuss the opioid abuse crisis, I heard directly from healthcare providers that the patient satisfaction survey’s pain management questions were leading to the overprescribing of opioids.”
Ayotte joined a bipartisan group of senators in writing to CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt and HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell in January to seek an update on efforts to determine whether patient satisfaction surveys tied to Medicare payments had encouraged more opioid treatments.
Ayotte also cosponsored a bill, the Promoting Responsible Opioid Prescribing Act, S. 2758, which would remove pain management questions from hospital quality surveys.
Collins, meanwhile, said physicians face the complicated task of treating pain at a time when prescription drug abuse has become the foremost public health challenge facing the nation.
“This epidemic requires us to examine our existing policies to ensure that they are not inadvertently contributing to our vast oversupply of opioids, which harms families and communities across America,” Collins said. “For this reason, I led a bipartisan coalition of 26 senators in urging HHS to examine the current patient satisfaction surveys. I am so pleased that HHS has taken action to eliminate this possible contributing factor to this burgeoning crisis.”
Collins, who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Aging, also convened a bipartisan hearing on opioid abuse among seniors earlier this year.
Going forward, CMS will develop alternative questions to assess pain management based on input from focus groups, field-testing and stakeholders.