The American Medical Association (AMA) Opioid Task Force released recommendations on May 30th, 2019 calling on policymakers to eliminate barriers to treatment and to take additional steps to end the opioid epidemic.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on the American Medical Association's website.
The task force’s new recommendations focus on barriers to treatment for substance use disorder and pain and other policies that result in so few patients receiving care. These include prior authorization, step therapy and other administrative burdens as well as inadequate enforcement of state and federal laws that require insurance parity for mental health and substance use disorders.
“We need help from policymakers to ensure that more people have access to treatment. Physicians are responding to the epidemic and we are seeing results: a reduction in opioid prescribing of 33 percent since 2013, increased use of prescription drug monitoring programs, enhanced education, and greater co-prescribing of naloxone,” said AMA President-elect Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA, who also is chair of the task force. Click here to continue>>
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