Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a member and former Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, joined Senator Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, in writing a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell to request an update on the Department’s plan to implement their National Pain Strategy.
Highlighting the urgent need to help millions of struggling Americans, Hatch and Schatz wrote, “One hundred million adults in our nation suffer with some level of chronic pain. With an annual cost burden of over $600 billion, chronic pain represents a national epidemic with a financial burden that demands greater attention.”
The senators urged the HHS to act quickly to put the National Pain Strategy into action, writing “it is time to transform the NPS from a plan on paper to a reality for the millions of Americans who are counting on the federal government to enact significant change to improve their health and quality of life.”
The Senators requested specific information regarding Secretary Burwell and the Department’s plans:
In order to achieve this shared vision, we hope that your agency will quickly develop and execute an implementation and evaluation plan for the NPS. In order for Congress to fully address the situation, we request an update by September 30, 2016, on your plans for NPS implementation, including information to address the following questions:
1. Who will lead NPS implementation efforts?
2. What is the agency’s budget for NPS implementation?
3. What is the agency’s timeline for NPS implementation?
4. In what ways will stakeholders be consulted throughout NPS implementation?
5. In what ways will barriers to quality pain care for underserved populations be addressed?
Joining Senators Hatch and Schatz in sending the letter were Senators Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Angus King, I-Maine; Mark Kirk, R-Ill., Jerry Moran, R-Kans.; Pat Roberts, R-Kans.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
The full letter is below:
June 29, 2016
The Honorable Sylvia Mathews Burwell
Secretary
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
330 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20201
Dear Secretary Burwell,
Thank you for your leadership in addressing our public health crises of chronic pain management and opioid abuse. As national conversations on pain management and opioid abuse continue, we respectfully request an update on your implementation plan for the National Pain Strategy.
The bipartisan, bicameral National Pain Care Policy Act of 2009 outlined the vital provisions necessary to address the public health epidemic of chronic pain. As a result, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) was directed to assess the nation’s state of pain care, education, and research. The resultant June 2011 report, Relieving Pain in America, documented the profound human and economic burden of chronic pain. One hundred million adults in our nation suffer with some level of chronic pain. With an annual cost burden of over $600 billion, chronic pain represents a national epidemic with a financial burden that demands greater attention. As noted in the IOM report and highlighted in a February 2012 Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, the federal research investment is glaringly inadequate, despite the substantial national burden imposed by chronic pain. Furthermore, the current state of educational and training efforts for, and the medical treatment of, chronic pain fall short of what is needed to address this national health crisis.
Recommendation 2.2 of the IOM report called for the development of a comprehensive population-level strategy to advance pain research, education, care, and prevention. We are pleased that in 2012, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health commissioned the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee of the National Institutes of Health to lead the development of the National Pain Strategy (NPS), in coordination with five other federal agencies and dozens of nominated experts from the medical-scientific, public, private, patient, and advocacy communities.
In March 2016, after an 18-month internal review and clearance process, we were satisfied to learn of the final release of the NPS. We commend your leadership in ensuring that the developed plan was both comprehensive and practical, including short-, medium-, and long-term deliverables in each of the six topic areas. Further, the identification of key federal and non-federal stakeholders, as well as the inclusion of evaluation metrics, has made the NPS an actionable blueprint from which significant national change can occur.
We were also encouraged to read the brief discussion pertaining to implementation of the NPS (p. 6):
“Sustained efforts across HHS, working through operating divisions, staff divisions, and also with non-governmental partners, will be required in order to implement the public health, clinical, and research initiatives described in this Strategy. These efforts will help to prevent pain, improve patient care and outcomes, assure appropriate patient and provider education, and advance pain-related applied research. The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), in conjunction with HHS operating and staff divisions, will consider the recommendations included in the Strategy and develop an implementation and evaluation plan based on this process [emphasis added].”
Since 2009, the impetus for action has only intensified. In states across the nation, chronic pain management has been neglected, allowing our nation’s management of pain care, education, and research to remain largely unchanged. As such, it is critical that the agency waste no time in developing and executing an implementation and evaluation plan for the NPS.
As the nation’s first interagency plan to achieve a system of effective, safe, high-quality, evidence-based pain care in America, implementation of the NPS is not only critical to reducing the significant human and economic burden of chronic pain, but is also an essential component of any plan to mitigate the nation’s opioid abuse, overdose, and addiction crisis. Given the severity of these national crises, it is time to transform the NPS from a plan on paper to a reality for the millions of Americans who are counting on the federal government to enact significant change to improve their health and quality of life.
In order to achieve this shared vision, we hope that your agency will quickly develop and execute an implementation and evaluation plan for the NPS. In order for Congress to fully address the situation, we request an update by September 30, 2016, on your plans for NPS implementation, including information to address the following questions:
6. Who will lead NPS implementation efforts?
7. What is the agency’s budget for NPS implementation?
8. What is the agency’s timeline for NPS implementation?
9. In what ways will stakeholders be consulted throughout NPS implementation?
10.In what ways will barriers to quality pain care for underserved populations be addressed?
It is essential that this department-wide policy is fully implemented.
