Pain Management

This study identified populations with non-cancer chronic pain to determine which patients may be more likely to receive an opioid prescription in an outpatient setting.

A new study in JAMA has found that patient-reported pain satisfaction scores on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys are not associated with rates of opioid prescribing after surgery.

In primary care, nurse practitioners and physician assistants do not necessarily order more ancillary services, or more costly services among alternatives, than physicians.

Palliative care can help alleviate the suffering and symptoms that go along with serious disease, making it an important component when caring for complex, high-need patients, said Allison Silvers, vice president of payment and policy at the Center to Advance Palliative Care.

Two surveys, one each for patients and providers, reveal gaps between patient confidence to manage disease or pain and what they'd like to see from their physicians.

This study describes the patient characteristics and healthcare utilization of a chronic pain population within an integrated healthcare system in northern California.

The collaboration between Purdue Pharma and the Virginia Department of Health comes about 2 months after Governor Terry McAuliffe declared the state’s opioid addiction crisis a public health emergency.

A review of our peer-reviewed research in the healthcare and mainstream press.

At the Annual Meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Washington, DC, several experts presented their progress in harnessing technology to help teenagers and young adults manage their juvenile arthritis.

Outpatient surgeries in the United States account for roughly 7% of annual healthcare expenditures. To exploit substantial opportunities to improve the value of outpatient surgical care, the authors composed an evidence-based care delivery composite for national discussion and pilot testing.

Non-Hispanic blacks are less likely to receive opioid prescription at discharge during emergency room visits for back pain and abdominal pain compared with non-Hispanic whites, researchers found.

Some surgical procedures were associated with an increased risk of chronic opioid use among patients who had never used opioids prior to surgery.

The Pew Charitable Trusts has proposed several ideas to address substance use disorders by focusing on developing and supporting policies such as the proposed rule to increase the patient limit for qualifying physicians to treat opioid use disorders.

A major shift in expenditures by payer type for opioid pain relievers occurred along with a 4-fold increase in overdose deaths from opioids in the United States.

There may be an inexpensive way to reduce the risky use of pain medications by people at high risk of overdosing: using trained therapists in the emergency department to provide motivational interviews.

The intravenous acetaminophen Ofirmev has been shown to decrease hospital length of stay, opioid-related complications, and overall costs compared with traditional opioid analgesics.

The guideline is designed to improve decision-making when prescribing pain medication. CDC authors note that the sheer rise of opioid prescriptions cannot be explained by the underlying health status of the population.

Study finds new opioid use high among adults with COPD, raising safety concerns in this vulnerable population.

This year's Nobel Prize winner in economics and his wife uncover sad statistics on how substance abuse and suicide are taking their toll on white Americans at midlife. Princeton's Angus Deaton speculates that the trends reflect the broader picture of inequality.

A study by Kaiser Permanente published today in The American Journal of Managed Care confirms that patients with chronic pain are seeking complementary treatments, and that if physicians must ask if they want to know about them.

Nearly one-fourth of patients with an opioid prescription for use for chronic pain will end up using the drugs in the long term, according to the result of a new study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

With a growing world population and a growing proportion of elderly, more people are living in suboptimal health around the world. A third of the world's population experienced more than 5 ailments in 2013, according to a study published in The Lancet.

New legislation introduced by a bipartisan group of US senators would make it more difficult for new and generic opioid drugs to obtain the approval of the FDA.