Pain Warriors Unite - (202) 792-5600
Calling ALL Pain Warriors, It's NOW or NEVER!
Fellow Pain Warriors --
We must UNITE to fight for the future of pain management in America.
Click Below get involved NOW!
Please Get Involved Now
Calls to Action & Team Tasks
What can YOU do to help?
- COMPLETE THE CPP CENSUS
- JOIN THE SOCIAL NETWORK WHERE YOU CAN RECRUIT & CONNECT WITH OTHER CPP'S IN YOUR AREA: MyChronicPainTeam
- TALK TO YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS & ASK THEM TO JOIN THE FIGHT!
- DOWNLOAD OUR WORKSHEETS & ADVOCACY OUTREACH KITS INCLUDING TIPS TO CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.
If you need help, please let us know!
**ALERT** Meet with Your State & Federal Representatives
schedule a meeting Today!
It's CRUCIAL for all CPP'S to Schedule a meeting or attend local events to urge your representatives to implement our National Pain Policy.
The only way to change the current pathway which has created a hostile regulatory environment is to GET INVOLVED IN THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS ASAP
CLICK HERE TO LOCATE YOUR STATE & FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVES ×
Send them the link to the HHS Pain Task Force's Report here:
https://www.hhs.gov/ash/advisory-committees/pain/reports/index.html
ENGAGE WITH YOUR REPRESENTATIVES BY ATTENDING LOCAL TOWN HALL MEETINGS , MEET & GREET, and OTHER EVENTS IN YOUR STATE .
You can find upcoming events in your State HERE
Legislative Outreach Kit
Our Legislative Outreach Kit Contains Instructions, Tips, and Links to locate & Contact Your State and Federal Representatives & Regulatory Agencies. Click the button below to download the kit.
AMA URGES CDC TO REVISE GUIDLINES
The American Medical Association (AMA) is urging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to make significant revisions to its 2016 Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain to protect patients with pain from the ongoing unintended consequences and misapplication of the guidance.
“To make meaningful progress toward ending this epidemic, a broad-based public health approach is required,” wrote AMA Executive Vice President and CEO James L. Madara, M.D. “We are now facing an unprecedented, multi-factorial and much more dangerous overdose and drug epidemic driven by heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, and stimulants. We can no longer afford to view increasing drug-related mortality through a prescription opioid-myopic lens.”
Among its recommendations, the AMA called for CDC to remove arbitrary limits or other restrictions on opioid prescribing given the lack of evidence that these limits have improved outcomes for patients with pain. Rather, they have increased stigma for patients with pain and have resulted in legitimate pain care being denied to patients. “Hard thresholds should never be used. Where such thresholds have been implemented based on the previous CDC Guideline, they should be eliminated,” Dr. Madara wrote.
Madara noted the CDC itself cautioned against misapplying the guideline to justify specific dose or quantity restrictions.
The AMA also urged CDC to add to its recommendations that “public and private payer policies must be fundamentally altered and aligned to support payment for non- pharmacologic treatments and multimodal, multidisciplinary pain care,” and to ensure that patients who may have pain and co-occurring opioid use disorder receive effective pain treatment.
Read the full AMA letter and each recommendations to revise the CDC guideline.
National News Coverage About Harmful effects on CPP'S
April 26th report by Shepard Smith about the harms to chronic pain patients as a result of the overarching CDC Guidelines.
Link to Video: https://youtu.be/2Jg0ZV9ftFE
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Fox News' Greg Gutfeld has been reporting about our plight for several months. Watch the most recent segment about the CDC Clarification featured on "The Five"
Watch segment here:
Former Drug Czar Dr. William Bennett: "the problem isn't rx drugs...talk to the coroner's, I have. It's Fentanyl & meth that's the major cause of death today."
- WATCH FULL CLIP: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6077905603001
Jennifer Braceras, Esq. vs Dr. Mark Siegel discuss the Opioid Trial Verdict:
- WATCH HERE https://youtu.be/D4RXaW9Nmho
Did the government overcorrect on the opioid epidemic?
Jun. 26, 2019 - CDC guidelines have led to doctors cutting back on painkiller subscriptions, leaving patients fighting to get the medication they need.
- WATCH Dr. Sally Satel: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6052464437001/#sp=show-clips
Fox News’ Dagen Mcdowell's Mom suffering from bone CANCER has to fight with her doctor to receive pain medication.
WATCH ️ https://youtu.be/dQx3ycdmSFM
More Coverage
More from Greg Gutfeld:
On Gillibrand Opioid Crackdown:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinEgutfeld-on-gillibrands-opioid-crackdown
Facts and Fallacies:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/greg-gutfeld-opioids-facts-and-fallacies
Unintended Victims:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/gutfeld-on-the-unintended-victims-of-the-opioid-crackdown
Dr. Drew: https://drdrew.com/tag/greg-gutfeld/
Daniel Horowitz, Esq. - The government’s war on pain patients
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/the-governments-war-on-pain-patients/
Dr. Bill Bennett:
Dr. Sally Satel
HHS ISSUES UPDATED OPIOID GUIDANCE
HHS Warns Doctors To Not Swing Too Far On Pendulum Away From Opioids For Chronic Pain Patients
As the country grapples with the opioid epidemic, there's been a broad crackdown on opioids in general. Now, HHS is urging doctors not to go too far in cutting off prescriptions. Other news on the crisis focuses on the court challenges to Purdue Pharma and other drugmakers.
Summary:
HHS' assistant secretary for health Dr. Brett Giroir urged clinicians to collaborate with patients on deciding how fast they reduce or stop their opioid therapies.
"We know that it is critical that clinicians manage acute and chronic pain in an individualized, patient-centered way," Giroir said.
There have been numerous reports of individuals being abruptly cut off their medication regimen after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain in 2016, according to Giroir.
The CDC guidelines recommended clinicians prescribe opioids only after exhausting other pain therapies, prescribe the lowest effective dosage, evaluate patients within 1 to 4 weeks of starting opioid therapy for chronic pain, and taper or discontinue opioids if the harms OUTWEIGH the benefits.
"Clearly, we believe that there has been a misinterpretation of the [CDC] guidelines, which were very clear," Giroir said. "People have inappropriately misinterpreted cautionary dosage thresholds as mandates for dose reduction."
Pain Management Task Force Meeting overview
RE: Overview of Pain Management Task Force Meeting & Recommendations
View Task Force's Final Report HERE
The purpose of this final meeting was for the Task Force members to disseminate and discuss the final report in full detail. They debated and deliberated to carefully refine the language and terminology to avoid future misinterpretation or misapplication. They reviewed the consensus of thousands of comments submitted by the public during the previous public comment
Summary:
Click Below for our Summary of the Meeting
HIPPA & PATIENTS PRIVACY
HIPPA and the opioid crisis
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights has released new guidance explaining when HIPAA permits health care providers and other covered entities to share a patient’s health information with loved ones and others involved in a patient’s care in these situations.
The guidance explains:
- Providers can share information with an individual patient's loved ones in certain emergency or dangerous situations, such as when the patient is in a crisis and incapacitated, or is facing a serious and imminent threat of harm.
- Patients with decision-making capacity retain their right to decide when and whether their information will be shared, unless there is a serious and imminent threat of harm.
- Patients' personal representatives, who have authority under state law to make health care decisions for patients, may request and obtain information on behalf of patients.
Report Adverse Drug Effects to FDA
What to Report to MedWatch:
Use the MedWatch form to report adverse events that you observe or suspect for human medical products, including serious drug side effects, product use/medication error, product quality problems, and therapeutic failures for:
- Prescription or over-the-counter medicines, as well as medicines administered to hospital patients or at outpatient infusion centers
- Biologics (including blood components, blood and plasma derivatives, allergenic, blood transfusions, gene therapies, and human cells and tissue transplants. For example, tendons, bone, and corneas)
- Medical devices (including diabetes glucose-test kit, hearing aids, breast pumps, and many more products)
- Combination products
Resources:
Find a Pain Specialist
Find a Pain Specialist:
https://health.usnews.com/doctors/search?specialty=Pain
https://www.controlyourpain.com/find-a-pain-management-specialist/
Tips for Finding a Pain Specialist HERE: https://paindoctor.com/pain-management-doctors/
Tools for Patients: https://www.painscale.com
Search for pain management doctors from the following sources:
Find Upcoming Events in Your State:
https://indivisible.org/events
URGENT BULLETIN
** URGENT BULLETIN ** Please SHARE with all State& Federal Representatives and Regulatory Agencies in charge of regulating Controlled Substances/Opioid prescribing.
Re: CDC Guideline Clarification Letter & FDA Advisory Notice pertaining to Opioid Prescribing
Below is a letter from the CDC clarifying the 2016 Opioid Prescribing Guideline and an Advisory Notice issued by the FDA regarding abrupt opioid tapering.
Link to Clarification Letter from the CDC: CLICK HERE
The Guideline is not intended to deny any patients who suffer with chronic pain from receiving opioid therapy as an option for pain management. Rather, the Guideline is intended to ensure that clinicians and patients consider all safe and effective treatment options for patients.
Clinical decision-making should be based on the relationship between the clinician and patient, with an understanding of the patient’s clinical situation, functioning, and life context, as well as a careful consideration of the benefits and risk of all treatment options, including opioid therapy.
CDC encourages physicians to continue to use their clinical judgment and base treatment on what they know about their patients, includes the use of opioids if determined to be the best course of treatment. Providers should communicate frequently with their patients to discuss both the benefits and risks of opioid therapy and revisit treatment plans for pain regularly to achieve the most positive outcomes for patients.
Link to FDA Announcement CLICK HERE
Reports of "serious harm" in patients dependent on opioid painkillerswho suddenly stop taking the medication, or rapidly decrease the dose, have prompted a drug safety communication issued today by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
PRESS RELEASE FROM HP3 - RE: CDC GUIDELINE
** PRESS RELEASE**
https://healthprofessionalsforpatientsinpain.org/press-release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE APRIL 10, 2019
TWO FEDERAL AGENCIES SPEAK AGAINST MANDATED OR PRECIPITOUS OPIOID REDUCTIONS IN CHRONIC PAIN PATIENTS
On April 10, the Director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, wrote to Health Professionals for Patients in Pain (HP3) to state that the CDC’s 2016 Guideline offered no support for mandatory opioid dose reductions in patients with long-term pain. Coming on the heels of an April 9 warning from the United States Food and Drug Administration of “serious harm” to patients after rapid dose reduction or discontinuation, the Director’s letter flags the need for a recalibration of care decisions imposed by a wide range of private and governmental agencies that have invoked the CDC to justify coverage restrictions, quality metrics, legal threats and other actions to force dose reductions on nonconsenting patients.
Please CLICK BELOW to read Press Release & Access the CDC Director's Letter responding to the HP3 Letter
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