In a report released by the American Medical Association (AMA) , it was found that nationwide, more than 19 million fewer prescriptions for opioids were issued from 2016 to 2017, resulting in a 9 percent decrease. Since 2013, the number of opioid prescriptions has decreased by more than 55 million, a 22.2 percent decrease. Overall, opioid prescribing has been reduced nationwide for the fifth year in a row as of the close of 2017 and all fifty states have seen declines in opioid prescribing over the same period.
When it comes to individual states, Pennsylvania doctors wrote 1.3 million fewer prescriptions for opioids in 2017 than they did in 2016. The steep decline in Pennsylvania of 14 percent was the among the largest in the nation.
These numbers do not signal a complete and total success, however. Multiple physician leaders understand that this is progress, but there is still work to be done. “While the report shows how physician leadership is advancing the fight against the opioid epidemic, both nationally and in Pennsylvania, we know there is much work left to do before we can turn the tide,” said John Gallagher, MD, chair of the Pennsylvania Medical Society’s Opioid Task Force.
“What is needed now,” said Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA, chair of the American Medical Association’s Opioid Task Force on the national level, “is a concerted effort to greatly expand access to high quality care for pain and for substance use disorders. Unless and until we do that, this epidemic will not end.”
The AMA report includes additional actions physicians and other healthcare professionals can take to help end the opioid epidemic. Some suggestions include:
- Registering for and using their state prescription drug monitoring program, a system that enables doctors to check a database of information about other prescriptions issued to a patient;
- Enhancing their own education about safe and effective prescribing practices and other approaches to treating pain. For example, in 2017, more than 549,700 physicians and other health care workers across the nation completed continuing medical education trainings and accessed other education resources;
- Increasing access to comprehensive treatment for opioid use disorders, including medication-assisted treatment;
- Ensuring that patients in pain receive the care they need to avoid the stigma of pain;
- Reducing the stigma of having a substance use disorder through recognition that they are treatable medical conditions; and
- Increasing access to naloxone, an opioid overdose reversing drug, through co-prescribing and other overdose prevention measures as well as expanding Good Samaritan laws.
In a nod to the importance of CME when it comes to the opioid epidemic, the AMA report notes that in addition to the staggering statistic above of over half a million healthcare providers completing CME, in 2016 and 2017, physicians and other health care professionals used the AMA opioid microsite website to access education and training resources from the nation’s medical societies and other trusted sources a total of 19,260 times. These materials cover opioid prescribing, pain management, screening for substance use disorders, and related areas.