From summary…
“Patients described harms they have experienced as a result of being involuntarily tapered, including increased pain, decreased mobility, and thoughts of suicide. Indeed, the debilitating physical, mental, and social effects of chronic pain have been well-documented. But involuntary tapering or inadequate treatment can also have a major negative impact on a patient’s quality of life, and can even drive them to self-medicate with alcohol or illicit drugs.
Moreover, patients and physicians told Human Rights Watch that non-opioid treatments for chronic pain are often unavailable or not covered by health insurance. The Guideline recommends that patients use non-opioid therapies to treat chronic pain, and emphasizes the importance of non-pharmacological treatments like massage, acupuncture, and various types of physical therapy. However, many patients and physicians told us these treatments are not an option because they would require patients to incur burdensome out-of-pocket costs.
The government’s efforts to combat the overdose epidemic should be balanced with the interests of chronic pain patients who have a medical need for opioid analgesics. As this report documents, current policies and practices to reduce the use of these medicines have significant unintended negative consequences, which the government should seek to redress. Among others, it should document the pace of involuntary tapering and its impact on chronic pain patients — including patients’ mental and physical health as well as hospitalization — and take corrective steps as needed.
More broadly, the government should take proactive steps to ensure that chronic pain patients who have a serious and often debilitating medical condition have access to adequate care. Federal and state governments have a responsibility to ensure that a broad range of pain treatment interventions is available to such patients, including non-pharmacological treatments, and that treatment modalities are covered by insurance plans, including Medicaid and Medicare.
In 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services released a National Pain Strategy, calling it the federal government’s first “coordinated plan for reducing the burden of chronic pain” in the United States.[1] The strategy aims to improve the prevention and management of pain; support the development of an integrated, patient-centered, approach to pain management; reduce barriers to treatment; and improve public awareness. But the strategy does not specifically address the situation of the thousands of chronic pain patients who are already on opioid medicines. To date, implementation of the strategy has primarily focused on a research agenda, rather than reducing the barriers to care chronic pain patients currently face. Congress has not made any appropriations to implement the strategy.”
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The War On Chronic Pain Patients 