Congress Expands Access to Non-Opioid Pain Management by Passing the NOPAIN Act
The NOPAIN Act has been passed by Congress in a direct push to address outdated federal reimbursement policies in an effort to combat the opioid crisis through increased utilization of non-opioid pain management approaches. The new law will expand patient and provider access to FDA approved non-opioid pain management approaches in all outpatient surgical settings beginning in 2025. Further, the law requires CMS to submit a report to Congress identifying the limitations, gaps, barriers to access, or deficits in Medicare coverage or reimbursement for restorative therapies, behavioral approaches, and complementary and integrative health services that are identified in the HHS Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force Report (2019).
HEAL Initiative Seeks to Fund the Development of Therapies and Technologies Directed at Enhanced Pain Management
The National Institutes of Health have posted a funding opportunity which aims to support the development of therapies and technologies directed at enhanced pain management through the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. This funding opportunity is focused on applications directed at improving pain treatment, including the development of new non-addictive medications and devices and objective pain measurement. In addition, NIH is interested in new screening tools and models focused specifically on pain and development of pain therapies.
Applications will be accepted now through April 2025.
ICYMI
CMS Creates New Pain Management Codes Heeding Advice of AACIPM
CMS has issued its finalized 2023 Physician Fee Schedule, creating, for the first time, billing codes at the federal level that are specific to the delivery of chronic pain management (CPM) services. Further, not only did CMS adopt the new CPM codes, but nearly all of the recommendations issued by AACIPM were substantially addressed within the final release. These codes (HCPCS G3002 and G3003) pertain to chronic pain lasting longer than three months and may be billed by a physician or other qualified health practitioner.
Learn more about the new codes and how AACIPM helped to shape them, and consider sharing this patient resource with any person living with pain who may be impacted by the code changes.
CDC Expands Opioid Guidance to Include Acute Pain and Additional Providers
CDC has released its Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain (2022). Updated and revised, this new guidance is intended to replace the CDC’s 2016 opioid guideline. CDC has made it explicitly clear that its guideline is intended to be voluntary and not to be used as an inflexible standard of care by health systems, insurers, or legislatures.
Learn more about the new guideline, how AACIPM was involved in its development, and what individual organizations have to say about the updated guidance.