Monday, October 2, 2017

37 Attorney Generals Push Incentives for prescription of Non-Pharm Pain Management Therapies

key words:  models of care, non-drug pain management, working as a team, research studies, funding/incentives

This September, Dennis Hoey of the Press Herald reported that there are now 37 state attorney generals that are pushing incentives to increase the use of non-pharmaceutical pain relief therapy as imperative to addressing the U.S. Opioid Crisis.

"Mills and her peers said the health care industry needs to promote the use of alternatives such as physical therapy, acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic care to treat patients' chronic pain."

"Mills said health insurers need to reduce any financial incentives to prescribing addictive narcotics and begin to offer greater coverage for alternative therapies."

Update:
As of Jan 2018, there is now a more comprehensive review of this in the winter 2018 issue of Meridians: JAOM, "U.S. Attorneys General Promote Acupuncture Coverage" by Bill Reddy, Dipl.Ac (NCCAOM) of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC).  Electronic copies of Meridians are available gratis through your state acupuncture association membership or you can subscribe for e-copy or print copy through the journal's website.  

citation:
Reddy B. U.S. Attorneys General Promote Acupuncture Coverage. MJAOM. 2018; 5(1): 39-40.


Related
The White Paper:  Acupuncture's Role in Solving the Opioid Epidemic
Joint Commission Pain Management Standard is updated
More about a pilot in Vermont looking at Medicaid and acupuncture for chronic pain management 
Research from the NIH, "Acupuncture is effective, safe, and cost-effective for treating several chronic pain conditions when performed by well-trained healthcare professionals."
How to use a Validated Pain Scale in Your Clinical Care

More great resources at The Collaborative.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please keep your comments clean and related to the post. Inappropriate comments will be deleted.