The Massachusetts Medical Society wishes to be recorded in
support for S.1100, legislation that would increase access to pain management
services. The Medical Society wishes to
commend Sen. John Keenen for putting forth this legislation.
S.1100 would require each commercial insurance carrier to
develop a pain management access plan, including those that provide
alternatives to opioid prescribing; allow the Health Policy Commission (HPC) to
consider non-opioid and non-pharmaceutical pain
management as criteria for the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) certification
process; and direct the Division of Insurance (DOI), with support from the HPC
and the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA), to include access to
non-opioid and non-pharmaceutical pain management standards as part of their
insurance accreditation process.
The MMS has a longstanding commitment to reducing opioid
prescribing and dependency, and to encouraging non-opioid approaches to pain
management. The Society is proud to have
worked alongside the Legislature, the Baker administration, insurers and
patient advocacy organizations on the many successful initiatives put in place
in the Commonwealth. These include
robust improvement in the state’s prescription monitoring program, promulgation
of prescribing guidelines for physicians, educating physicians in pain
management, educating patients about the risks of these medications and their
proper storage and disposal, and recognition of addiction as a disease rather
than a crime with prioritization of treatment.
This legislation is an important next step in ensuring that health
insurers offer consumers access to evidence based non-opioid and
non-pharmaceutical pain options, where appropriate.
Specifically, the bill would allow the Health Policy
Commission to include adequacy of non-opioid and non-pharmaceutical pain
management services in its certification of ACO’s and would include individuals
with chronic pain in the definition of vulnerable populations. It would also charge CHIA with establishing
standards for access to mental health services, substance use and pain
management services that would be used by the DOI in its network adequacy
review process for health insurers.
Lastly, it would charge the DOI and the HPC with developing
evidence-based standards for pain management and publish guidelines to assist
health insurers in developing pain management access plans. These provisions would increase
accountability by health insurers and would increase patients access to
innovative pain management services that include non-opioid and non-pharmaceutical
options.
The MMS urges the Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use
and Recovery to report S.1100 out of Committee favorably.
