Advocacy
APS Advocacy Agenda
Goal 1: Increase Federal Funding for Pain Research
Objective 1: Support infrastructure and mechanisms for increased funding of pain specific research by federal agencies.
- Support the National Pain Care Policy Act of 2007
- Support the Military and Veterans Pain Care Act of 2007
- Support increased appropriation for pain research funding through Department of Defense and/or VA appropriations vehicles
Objective 2: Identify gaps in current pain research that affect the translation of research findings from bench to bedside and to community practice.
- APS will define translational pain research needs, barriers to this research and recommendations on how funding agencies and Congress can overcome these barriers.
Goal 2: Improve the Viability of Effective Clinical Pain Management Services
Through Educational Initiatives and Removal of Barriers to Interdisciplinary
Approaches to Care
Objective 1: Educate providers, insurers, and the public regarding best practices in the management of pain.
- Require the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to
- Collect and disseminate protocols and evidence-based practices regarding pain care to clinicians and the general public
- Fund educational and training programs for health care professionals in pain care.
Objective 2: Remove barriers hampering access to and reimbursement for interdisciplinary approaches to pain care.
- Require Medicare Advantage plans to offer appropriate care for the treatment of patients in pain, including specialty and tertiary care for patients with intractable pain.
- Require CMS to submit to Congress an annual report on Medicare expenditures for pain care under parts A, B, and D of the program.
- Support a Medicare demonstration program providing alternative payment arrangements for multidisciplinary chronic pain care.
Objective 3: Remove barriers hampering access to and reimbursement for the treatment of co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders in patients with pain.
- Support Congressional efforts to mandate mental health and substance abuse treatment parity in commercial health insurance.
Goal 3: Inform the National Debate and Policy Development on Diversion and Abuse
of Opioid Analgesics by Supporting Research that Will Provide Objective Data
Objective 1: Support changes in rules and regulations that utilize language that reflects contemporary understanding of the terms addiction, dependence, and tolerance.
Objective 2: Support federal funding of research on the factors involved in pain and prescription opioid abuse.
Objective 3: Support efforts by the National Pain Work Group and its Balanced Pain
Policy Initiative to ensure that all people in pain have access to appropriate
medications, but that controlled-substance pain prescriptions are not misused or
used for illicit purposes.
Objective 4: Develop evidence-based clinical practice guidelines on the use of
opioids.
