Ramsin Benyamin, MD, testified before the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means on behalf of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians. In the testimony, ASIPP proposed a three-tiered approach to curb opioid abuse and deaths while maintaining appropriate access and promoting nonopioid treatments for pain.
Here are three things to know.
1. Dr. Benyamin is an interventional pain physician and the medical director and founder of Millennium Pain Center in Bloomington, Ill. He is also a clinical assistant professor of surgery at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Urbana-Champaign and an adjunct research professor in the psychology department at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington.
2. In the past, Dr. Benyamin served as president of ASIPP and is currently on the board of directors. He is the president of the Illinois Society of Interventional Pain Physicians. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles and has clinics throughout Illinois.
3. Here are the three tiers of ASIPP's proposed approach.
Tier 1:
- A public education campaign explicitly teaching the dangers of illicit drug use, especially heroin and fentanyl
- A public education campaign on the adverse consequences of opioid abuse, emphasizing the negative effects in combination with benzodiazepines
- Mandatory physician education for all prescribers of any amount of opioids or benzodiazepines with a mandated four hours of continuing education a year
- Mandatory patient education with the first prescription of any amount of opioid
Tier 2:
- Easier access to and low or no co-payments for nonopioid techniques including physical therapy and interventional techniques that could reduce medication use and improve the patient's outcome
- Expanding low-threshold access to buprenorphine for opioid use disorder
- Establishing an enhanced prescription drug monitoring program with National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act program. Each state must at least be able to interact with all bordering states.
- A mandated review of PDMP data by all providers prior to all prescriptions.
Tier 3:
- Changing buprenorphine to a Schedule II drug and making it available for chronic pain treatment in addition to medication-assisted treatment
- Removing methadone from formulary, which accounts for over 3,000 deaths per year but only 1 percent of total prescriptions
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