Workers' Compensation: Search results for opioids

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Sunday, January 11, 2015

CES 2015: Quell Promises Pain Relief with New FDA-Approved Gadget

Quell is a new gadget that promises pain relief. It attaches to a user’s
calf and emits electronic signals that boost the body's opiate production.
(Photo : Business Wire)

Today's post is shared from techtime.com/

A new gadget revealed at CES 2015 promises to provide pain relief through technology. The device, dubbed Quell, attaches to the user's calf and stimulates the body's opiate production to relieve pain from various ailments.

When most people think of pain relief, they think of some sort of pill ingested internally, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, or similar over the counter product. For more serious pain, there are prescription medicines available, but they can be highly addictive, have many serious side effects, and have a large potential for abuse.

Quell promises an external source of pain relief. The unit attaches to the user's calf, which the makers of the Quell consider a "virtual USB port," and electrodes stimulate the wearer's body to release pain-relieving opiates. The sensory nerves it stimulates send neural pulses to the brain that trigger the release of endogenous opioids, the pain-relief response that blocks pain signals in the spine. The process is called Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation technology, also known as TENS. There are already over-the-counter TENS systems such as the one made by Icy Hot, but these are very low-powered and low-tech compared with Quell.

Quell is also much more expensive, but manufacturer NeuroMetrix, a health-care company that develops...

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Friday, November 21, 2014

Govt wants more clinical trial results made public

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from hosted.ap.org

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Doctors and patients may soon find it easier to learn if clinical trials of treatments worked or not, as the government proposed new rules Wednesday expanding what researchers are required to publicly report.
Thousands of Americans participate in clinical trials every year, to test new treatments or diagnostics, compare which older therapies work best, or help uncover general knowledge about health.
Many of the studies are reported in scientific journals or trumpeted in the news. But researchers don't always publicly reveal their results, especially when the findings show a treatment doesn't work as initially hoped, said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.
Collins cited one recent analysis that found less than half of studies had been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal within 30 months of completion.
"This is simply not acceptable," Collins said. "This dissemination of trial results is the way in which medical progress occurs."
Wednesday's proposals aim to change that by increasing information available on a public database - http://www.clinicaltrials.gov - that already is a major source for patients and doctors seeking to find the latest studies that need volunteers.
That site lists basic registration information - what's being studied, in whom - about more than 178,000 clinical trials here and abroad. Some are enrolling participants; some already are completed. By NIH's count, just 15,000 of...

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Tuesday, October 7, 2014

For most chronic pain, neurologists declare opioids a bad choice

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.latimes.com

Patients taking opioid painkillers for chronic pain not associated with cancer -- conditions such as headaches, fibromyalgia and low-back pain -- are more likely to risk overdose, addiction and a range of debilitating side effects than they are to improve their ability to function, a leading physicians group declared Wednesday.

The long-term use of opioids may not, in the net, be beneficial even in patients with more severe pain conditions, including sickle-cell disease, destructive rheumatoid arthritis and severe neuropathic pain, the American Academy of Neurologists opined in a new position statement released Wednesday.

But even for patients who do appear to benefit from opioid narcotics, the neurology group warned, physicians who prescribe these drugs should be diligent in tracking a patient's dose increases, screening for a history of depression or substance abuse, looking for signs of misuse and insisting as a condition of continued use that opioids are improving a patient's function.

In disseminating a new position paper on opioid painkillers for chronic non-cancer pain, the American Academy of Neurology is hardly the first physicians group to sound the alarm on these medications and call for greater restraint in prescribing them.

But it appears to be the first to lay out a comprehensive set of research-based guidelines that...

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Friday, October 3, 2014

NIH: Is The Government Funding the Right Researchers?

The US National Institutes of Health control vast amount of funding dollars in the US. Selecting who and what to fund is a major task and leads to innovative thinking and approaches to challenging health problems. As the recent Ebola epidemic has highlighted, the NIH hasn't stayed ahead of the game. The post highlights that the NIH should be compelled to revaluate its funding deternination. Today's post is share from the nytimes.com/

WASHINGTON — Every year the National Institutes of Health receives almost $30 billion in federal funds to invest in biomedical research. The bulk of that money goes to researchers who are in many cases esteemed in their fields — but also, in many cases, beyond the age when most scientists make their most important contributions to their fields.

A study for the National Bureau of Economic Research from 2005 examined the age at which over 2,000 Nobel Prize winners and other notable scientists in the 20th century came up with the idea that led to their breakthrough. Most were between 35 and 39. Yet the median age of first-time recipients of R01 grants, the most common and sought-after form of N.I.H. funding, is 42, while the median age of all recipients is 52. More people over 65 are funded with research grants than those under age 35.

As a physician who conducted N.I.H.-funded research before entering politics, I saw firsthand how the most innovative thinking frequently came from younger scientists. The N.I.H. is likewise aware of the disparity; its director, Francis S. Collins, has spoken out about the folly of not investing in young scientists, and his organization has taken some small steps to target younger researchers. As a result, the average age of first-time grant recipients has stopped rising.

However, the problem still exists, and the N.I.H. does not have a serious plan to fix it.

Click here to read the entire article.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Federal research seeks alternatives to addictive opioids for veterans in pain

The National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs this week announced that they will launch a five-year, $21.7 million initiative to study the effectiveness of alternative therapies to opioids through a series of 13 research projects.
Nearly half of all troops returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq are suffering from chronic pain, more than double the civilian population, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Many of those veterans have been prescribed opioids.
The drugs often have disabling side effects, and some studies show they are often addictive and may exacerbate pain conditions in some patients.

The joint research program includes studies on the use of morning light to treat lower-back pain and post-traumatic stress disorder, and the use of chiropractors, self-hypnosis and meditation to reduce pain, said Josephine P. Briggs, director of the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH.
Funding for the initiative comes from the NCCAM, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the VA’s Health Services Research and Development Division. The research projects will be done at academic institutions and VA medical centers across the United States.
“This is a very urgent issue for the soldiers returning home – the magnitude of the problem is huge,” Briggs...

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Saturday, September 6, 2014

NH Governor Hassan Creates Workers’ Compensation Commission for Reform

In order to help reduce workers’ compensation costs that are a burden on New Hampshire businesses and ensure that injured workers have access to high-quality care, Governor Maggie Hassan today issued an Executive Order creating the Commission to Recommend Reforms to Reduce Workers’ Compensation Medical Costs.

“Employers and workers have done their part to increase workplace safety, but New Hampshire has become one of the most expensive states in the nation for workers’ compensation, a burden on businesses across the state,” Governor Hassan said. “By bringing together business leaders and experts from insurance, health care and labor, the Commission to Recommend Reforms to Reduce Workers’ Compensation Medical Costs provides an opportunity for stakeholders to identify ways to reduce workers’ compensation medical costs and ensure that injured workers have access to quality care. With these reforms, our businesses will be able to re-invest these dollars in growing their companies, creating new jobs and keeping our economy moving in the right direction.”

Tasked with making recommendations to reform New Hampshire’s workers’ compensation system, the commission will review the data behind New Hampshire’s high workers’ compensation costs; analyze efforts by other states to successfully reduce workers’ compensation costs; review how other states ensure continued access to quality care for injured workers; and develop comprehensive reforms that will reduce costs and premiums and improve New Hampshire’s workers’ compensation system while ensuring that injured workers have access to quality care.

According to the Oregon Workers Compensation Rate Ranking Study, New Hampshire rose from the 14th-most expensive state for workers’ compensation coverage in the country in 2008 to the ninth-most expensive in 2012. In addition, data from the National Council on Compensation Insurance shows that workers’ compensation surgical procedures in New Hampshire are 83 percent more expensive than those in the region and more than twice as expensive as they are nationally. For more information on New Hampshire’s workers’ compensation costs, visit www.nh.gov/insurance/media/pr/2014/documents/052214.pdf

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“New Hampshire is among the most expensive states for workers’ compensation, an unnecessary disadvantage for businesses that operate here,” said New Hampshire Insurance Department Commissioner Roger Sevigny. “I look forward to working with the commission to improve our workers’ compensation system by making recommendations to reduce costs and premiums while ensuring that workers have access to quality care.”

Commissioner Sevigny will be the chairman of the Commission to Recommend Reforms to Reduce Workers’ Compensation Medical Costs. He will be joined on the commission by New Hampshire Department of Labor Commissioner Jim Craig or a designee from the department, as well as a diverse group of experts representing workers, employers, insurance professionals and the health care sector.

The Commission’s final report is due to the Governor on December 1, 2014.

Other members of the commission are:
Brian Allen, Vice President of Government Affairs at HELIOS (formerly Progressive Medical/PMSI)
Donald F. Baldini, AVP and State Affairs Officer at Liberty Mutual Insurance
Pamela Bronson, Administrator at Access Sports Medicine & Orthopedics
Paul W. Chant of Cooper Cargill Chant
Tammy Denver, Director of Claims & Coverage Programs at NH Public Risk Management Exchange (Primex3)
Edward Dudley, Executive Vice President/CFO of Catholic Medical Center
Mark Erdody, Director of New England Claims for Cove Risk Services, LLC
Marc Lacroix, New Hampshire Physical Therapy Association and Director of Specialty Services at Concord Hospital
David Lang, President of Professional Firefighters of NH
Mark Mackenzie, President of NH AFL-CIO
Peter McNamara, President of NH Automobile Dealers Association
Dr. Gregory Soghikian of New Hampshire Orthopaedic Center
Ben Wilcox, President & General Manager of Cranmore Mountain Resort

Full text of the Governor’s Executive Order

Monday, August 25, 2014

Chicago and 2 California Counties Sue Over Marketing of Painkillers

Today's post is shared from the nytimes.com

As the country struggles to combat the growing abuse of heroin and opioid painkillers, a new battlefield is emerging: the courts.
The City of Chicago and two California counties are challenging the drug industry’s way of doing business, contending in two separate lawsuits that “aggressive marketing” by five companies has fueled an epidemic of addiction and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in insurance claims and other health care costs.
The severity of drug abuse is well documented: Use of prescription opioids contributed to 16,651 deaths in the United States in 2010 alone, and to an estimated 100,000 deaths in the past decade. When people cannot find or afford prescription painkillers, many have increasingly turned to heroin.
The lawsuits assert that drug makers urged doctors to prescribe the drugs far beyond their traditional use to treat extreme conditions, such as acute pain after surgery or injury or cancer pain, while underplaying the high risk of addiction. Such marketing, the plaintiffs say, has contributed to widespread abuse, addiction, overdose and death.
Taking the drug makers to court recalls the tobacco liability wars of the 1990s, with government entities suing in the hope of addressing a public health problem and forcing changes from an industry they believed was in denial about the effects of its products. The tobacco settlement led to agreements by the tobacco industry to change marketing practices, which is a goal of the opioid lawsuits.
...

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Sunday, August 17, 2014

Pharmacies Turn Drugs Into Profits, Pitting Insurers vs. Compounders

Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

It may be the biggest thing in diaper rash treatment, a custom-made product to soothe a baby’s bottom at the eye-popping price of $1,600.
This is no Desitin or Balmex, or any other brand found in stores. This cream is blended to order in a pharmacist’s lab.
Does it work better than the common treatments? There is little evidence either way. But the sky-high prices commanded by such compounded medicines are drawing the ire of health insurance companies that must pick up the bill. They say the industry is profiteering at their expense.
Compounded medicines are the Savile Row suits of the pharmacy, made to order when common treatments will not suffice. Pharmacists say it is the doctors who decide what to prescribe. But many pharmacies have standard formulations and some promise six-figure incomes to sales representatives who call on doctors.
Besides the $1,600 ointment to treat diaper rash, there was the $8,500 cream to reduce scarring and the $2,300 salve to relieve pain recently billed to Catamaran, a pharmacy benefits manager. Alarmed that its spending on compounded drugs has quintupled in just two years, Catamaran has begun to review such claims more carefully.

Pharmacy benefit managers owned by UnitedHealth and Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans are also reining in spending on compounded drugs, as are insurers like Harvard Pilgrim and various state workers’ compensation plans.
Express Scripts, the largest pharmacy benefits manager, has said it will stop...

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Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Medical pot covered by workers' comp, says appeals court

If undefined by statute, workers' compensation provides for an almost limitless delivery of medical benefits. What ever "cures and/or relieves" is authorized and is paid for by the employer/insurance carrier. Today's post is shared from hr.blr.com
The New Mexico Court of Appeals recently ruled that an employer must pay for an injured worker's medical marijuana. This appears to be the nation's first appellate court ruling in a workers' compensation case in which an employer has been ordered to pay for medical marijuana prescribed by an employee's healthcare provider to treat a workplace injury.
George Vialpando injured his back in a workplace accident in 2000 while he was employed by Ben's Automotive Services in Santa Fe. For years, he was unable to find pain relief through conventional drugs and treatment. His physician said Vialpando had "some of the most extremely high intensity, frequency and duration of pain, out of all of the thousands of patients I've treated within my seven years practicing medicine."
In 2013, Vialpando was certified by his healthcare providers to participate in the New Mexico medical marijuana program. The program, authorized by the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act, permits an individual to purchase marijuana after receiving certification from a medical practitioner licensed in New Mexico that states he has a debilitating medical condition and the potential health benefits of the medical use of cannabis would likely outweigh the health...

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Sunday, June 29, 2014

Rick Perry, Texas and A Record of High Worker Fatalities and of Weak Benefits

Rick Perry presidential campaign, 2012 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Texas does not mandate workers' compensation coverage and injured workers. The difficulties with such a program are highlighted in a report shared from the NYTimes.com If Rick Perry runs for President in 2016 the system maybe promoted for national adoption.

Almost anywhere in the vast Lone Star State, one can find evidence of the “Texas miracle” economy that policy makers like Gov. Rick Perry have talked about in their political speeches.

The hot economy, they say, is the result of their zealous opposition to over-regulation, greedy trial lawyers and profligate government spending.

But state leaders have rarely mentioned the grim side of the workplace: Texas has led the nation in worker fatalities for seven of the last 10 years, and when Texans get hurt or killed on the job, they have some of the weakest protections and hardest-to-obtain benefits in the country.

Texas is the only state that does not require private employers to carry workers’ compensation insurance or a private equivalent, so more than 500,000 workers — about 6 percent of the work force — receive no occupational benefits if they are injured on the job. On-the-job injuries can leave them unable to work, and with little recourse.

More than a million Texans are covered by private occupational insurance from their employers. Those plans are not regulated by the state but are often written to sharply limit the benefits, legal rights and medical options of workers. Employers, however, say their workers often get quicker and better care under the private plans.

Most Texas workers, about 81 percent, are covered by a state-regulated compensation system, which provides injured workers with standard benefits, including partial...

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Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Employers Eye Moving Sickest Workers To Insurance Exchanges

Today's post is shared from Kaiser.org
Can corporations shift workers with high medical costs from the company health plan into online insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act? Some employers are considering it, say benefits consultants.
"It's all over the marketplace," said Todd Yates, a managing partner at Hill, Chesson & Woody, a North Carolina benefits consulting firm. "Employers are inquiring about it and brokers and consultants are advocating for it."

Health spending is driven largely by patients with chronic illness such as diabetes or who undergo expensive procedures such as organ transplants. Since most big corporations are self-insured, shifting even one high-cost member out of the company plan could save the employer hundreds of thousands of dollars a year -- while increasing the cost of claims absorbed by the marketplace policy by a similar amount.
And the health law might not prohibit it, opening a door to potential erosion of employer-based coverage.
"Such an employer-dumping strategy can promote the interests of both employers and employees by shifting health care expenses on to the public at large," wrote two University of Minnesota law professors in a 2010 paper that basically predicted the present interest. The authors were Amy Monahan and Daniel Schwarcz.
It's unclear how many companies, if any, have moved sicker workers to exchange coverage, which became available only in January. But even a few high-risk patients could add...

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Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Prices Soaring for Specialty Drugs, Researchers Find

Workers' Compensation insurance covers the FULL cost of prescription drugs.Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

Even as the cost of prescription drugs has plummeted for many Americans, a small slice of the population is being asked to shoulder more and more of the cost of expensive treatments for diseases like cancer and hepatitis C, according to a report to be released on Tuesday by a major drug research firm.

The findings echo the conclusions of two other reports released last week by major pharmacy benefit managers, which predicted that spending on so-called specialty drugs would continue to rise.

The report, by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, also found that consumers’ use of health care — visits to the doctor, hospital admissions and prescription drug use — rose in 2013 for the first time in three years, mainly because of the improving economy, it said.

“Following several years of decline, 2013 was striking for the increased use by patients of all parts of the U.S. health care system,” Murray Aitken, executive director of the IMS Institute, said in a statement. He noted that the spike came before the Affordable Care Act, which has helped provide health insurance to millions of new customers, fully went into effect.

But even as consumers became more confident about spending money on health care last year, the report found that a divide is developing between those with medical conditions that can be treated with cheap generic drugs, and those with rare and often more serious diseases that can come with breathtaking price tags.

More than...

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Workers' Compensation: The Selling of Prescription Drugs ...

Dec 18, 2013

A major international pharmaceutical company has made a major change in strategy for the sale of prescription drugs. Part of the change was induced by the economics of litigation and the threat additional lawsuits. Today's ...

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The High Price of Drugs: Upscale Pricing By Doctors

Jul 12, 2012

Prescription drugs have become an increasingly important issue in workers' compensation law. Their use in workers' compensation claims has resulted in both a major direct financial cost to the system, and has had .

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Opioid Use in Workers ...

Jun 18, 2013

The CDC latest statistics show close to 40,000 drug overdose deaths each year in the United States, more than half of which involve prescription drugs. Deaths in which opioids are used now exceed deaths involving heroin ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

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Friday, March 28, 2014

Nurse Ratched Comes To Workers' Compensation or Why Workers' Compensation Should NOT be Involved in Criminal Drug Enforcement

State officials and legislators are increasingly concerned with the over-prescription of opiates and other controlled substances for pain management in the workers’ compensation program.

A bill pending in...

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Related Story:
Workers' Compensation: Physicians Petition to Limit Opioid Abuse
Jul 27, 2012
The efforts to reform pharmacuetical use is a tough balancing act. The ulterior motive of cost savings and profits generates sensationalism, but what makes good medical sense and what benefits the patient should not go ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Characterizing the quality of supportive cancer care can guide quality improvement of veterans

Objective  To evaluate nonhospice supportive cancer care comprehensively in a national sample of veterans.
Design, Setting, and Participants  Using a retrospective cohort study design, we measured evidence-based cancer care processes using previously validated indicators of care quality in patients with advanced cancer, addressing pain, nonpain symptoms, and information and care planning among 719 veterans with a 2008 Veterans Affairs Central Cancer Registry diagnosis of stage IV colorectal (37.0%), pancreatic (29.8%), or lung (33.2%) cancer.
Main Outcomes and Measures  We abstracted medical records from diagnosis for 3 years or until death among eligible veterans (lived ≥30 days following diagnosis with ≥1 Veterans Affairs hospitalization or ≥2 Veterans Affairs outpatient visits). Each indicator identified a clinical scenario and an appropriate action. For each indicator for which a veteran was eligible, we determined whether appropriate care was provided. We also determined patient-level quality overall and by pain, nonpain symptoms, and information and care planning domains.
Results  Most veterans were older (mean age, 66.2 years), male (97.2%), and white (74.3%). Eighty-five percent received both inpatient and outpatient care, and 92.5% died. Overall, the 719 veterans triggered a mean of 11.7 quality indicators (range, 1-22) and received a mean 49.5% of appropriate care. Notable gaps in care were that inpatient pain screening was common (96.5%) but lacking for outpatients (58.1%). With opioids, bowel prophylaxis occurred for only 52.2% of outpatients and 70.5% of inpatients. Few patients had a timely dyspnea evaluation (15.8%) or treatment (10.8%). Outpatient assessment of fatigue occurred for 31.3%. Of patients at high risk for diarrhea from chemotherapy, 24.2% were offered appropriate antidiarrheals. Only 17.7% of veterans had goals of care addressed in the month after a diagnosis of advanced cancer, and 63.7% had timely discussion of goals following intensive care unit admission. Most decedents (86.4%) were referred to palliative care or hospice before death. Single- vs multiple-fraction radiotherapy should have been considered in 28 veterans with bone metastasis, but none were offered this option.
Conclusions and Relevance  These care gaps reflect important targets for improving the patient and family experience of cancer care.

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Thursday, October 31, 2013

DePaolo's Work Comp World: Trucks, WBV and Cancer

The National Cancer Institute (NC!) reports that over 230,000 males in the US will diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2013 and that 29,790 deaths will result. David DePaolo, published of WorkCompCentral®, writes today of the potential new wave of workers' compensation claims arising from the association of whole-body vibration syndrome (WBV) experienced by truck drivers and its relationship to prostate cancer. He links source material to support the argument. This post is shared from http://daviddepaolo.blogspot.com .

You just never know what the next big risk category is going to be in workers' compensation.
I had been persuaded by an argument offered by Charlie Kingdollar, Vice President emerging issues unit for General Re Corp., that nanomaterials would be the next asbestos.

OSHA has been particularly concerned with silica in the past couple of years.

F.D.A. Shift on Painkillers Was Years in the Making

Narcotic pain killers have been the subject of concern and regulation by employers' and their insurance carriers nationally. The evolution of the FDA proposed action to regulate is revealed in today's post is shared from the NYTimes.com

When Heather Dougherty heard the news last week that the Food and Drug Administration had recommended tightening how doctors prescribed the most commonly used narcotic painkillers, she was overjoyed. Fourteen years earlier, her father, Dr. Ronald J. Dougherty, had filed a formal petition urging federal officials to crack down on the drugs.

Dr. Dougherty told officials in 1999 that more of the patients turning up at his clinic near Syracuse were addicted to legal narcotics like Vicodin and Lortab that contain the drug hydrocodone than to illegal narcotics like heroin.

Since then, narcotic painkillers, or opioids, have become the most frequently prescribed drugs in the United States and have set off a wave of misuse, abuse and addiction. Experts estimate that more than 100,000 people have died in the last decade from overdoses involving the drugs. For his part, Dr. Dougherty, who foresaw the problem, retired in 2007 and is now 81 and living in a nursing home.
“Too many lives have been ruined,” his daughter said.

The story behind the F.D.A.’s turnaround on the pain pills, last Thursday, involved a rare victory by lawmakers from states hard hit by prescription drug abuse over well-financed lobbyists for business and...

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Thursday, October 24, 2013

FDA Proposes Changes in Pain Medication Prescriptions

The US FDA has announced proposed changes will be forthcoming in labeling for pain relief medication:

Consumers and health care professionals will soon find updated labeling for extended-release and long-acting opioid pain relievers to help ensure their safe and appropriate use.

"In addition to requiring new labeling on these prescription medications, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is also requiring manufacturers to study certain known serious risks when these drugs are used long-term.

"The new labeling requirements and other actions are intended to help prescribers and patients make better decisions about who benefits from the use of these medications.

They also are meant to reduce problems associated with their use," says Douglas Throckmorton, M.D., deputy director of regulatory programs in FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "Altogether, the actions we're now announcing are part of FDA's efforts to make opioids as safe as possible for those who need them," Throckmorton adds.

"He noted that the actions come after careful analysis of new safety information, including reviews of medical literature, and consideration of input from patients, experts and many other interested parties.

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Bill Creating Clear Guidelines in Dispensing of Opiod Medications Introduced in New Jersey Senate

The post today is authored by John H. Geaney, Esq. of the NJ Bar, and is shared via njworkerscompblog.com

Opioid medications have become a major problem in the New Jersey workers’ compensation system. The number of workers being prescribed opioids has increased dramatically along with other attendant problems, such as addictions to the medications, excessive periods of use, and large numbers of unused opioid pills due to over-prescribing.

Every workers’ compensation professional can attest to these and other problems with opioid medications, not to mention cases where urine testing shows no trace of opioids in the system despite repeated renewals of opioid prescriptions.

On September 30, 2013, Senator Raymond Lesniak and Senator Stephen Sweeney introduced a bill in the New Jersey Senate proposing that medical expenses shall not include coverage of opioid drugs unless the prescribing doctor does the following:

1) takes a thorough medical history and physical examination focusing on the cause of the patient’s pain;

2) does a complete assessment of the potential addiction of the patient to opioids, which would include a baseline urine test and assessment of past and current depression, anxiety disorders and other mood disorders associated with risk of opioid abuse;

3) provides a written treatment plan with measurable objectives, a list of all medications being taken and dosages, a justification for the continued use of opioid...

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Sunday, January 11, 2015

CES 2015: Quell Promises Pain Relief with New FDA-Approved Gadget

Friday, November 21, 2014

Govt wants more clinical trial results made public

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

For most chronic pain, neurologists declare opioids a bad choice

Friday, October 3, 2014

NIH: Is The Government Funding the Right Researchers?

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Federal research seeks alternatives to addictive opioids for veterans in pain

Saturday, September 6, 2014

NH Governor Hassan Creates Workers’ Compensation Commission for Reform

Monday, August 25, 2014

Chicago and 2 California Counties Sue Over Marketing of Painkillers

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Pharmacies Turn Drugs Into Profits, Pitting Insurers vs. Compounders

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Medical pot covered by workers' comp, says appeals court

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Rick Perry, Texas and A Record of High Worker Fatalities and of Weak Benefits

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Employers Eye Moving Sickest Workers To Insurance Exchanges

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Prices Soaring for Specialty Drugs, Researchers Find

Friday, March 28, 2014

Nurse Ratched Comes To Workers' Compensation or Why Workers' Compensation Should NOT be Involved in Criminal Drug Enforcement

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Characterizing the quality of supportive cancer care can guide quality improvement of veterans

Thursday, October 31, 2013

DePaolo's Work Comp World: Trucks, WBV and Cancer

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

F.D.A. Shift on Painkillers Was Years in the Making

Thursday, October 24, 2013

FDA Proposes Changes in Pain Medication Prescriptions

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Bill Creating Clear Guidelines in Dispensing of Opiod Medications Introduced in New Jersey Senate

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