Nearly 30 U.S. senators, led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), have signed a letter to a top federal health official questioning whether hospital patient satisfaction surveys on pain control should be tied to federal funding, according to a Portland Press Herald report.
Here are three things to know about the letter.
1. In the letter, sent to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, lawmakers urge federal officials to examine hospital patient surveys on pain control, which currently are a factor in a complex Medicare funding formula aimed at rewarding hospitals for quality care, according to the report.
2. The lawmakers also question whether pain management should even be a factor at all. "As we take steps to reward high quality care in the Medicare program, it is critical that we correctly measure the quality we are rewarding," lawmakers said in the letter, according to the report. "Currently, there is no objective diagnostic method that can validate or quantify pain. Development of such a measure would surely be a worthwhile endeavor.
In the meantime, however, we are concerned that the current evaluation system may inappropriately penalize hospitals and pressure physicians who, in the exercise of medical judgment, opt to limit opioid pain relievers to certain patients and instead reward those who prescribe opioids more frequently," the lawmakers added.
3. Additionally, the lawmakers contend the U. S. is still prescribing far too many opioids, according to the report. Mounting data illuminating the national opioid and heroin addiction epidemic recently prompted President Barack Obama to add $1.1 billion in new funding in his fiscal year 2017 budget to help those struggling with addiction.
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