OPIOID PRESCRIBING FOR PAIN IS INHIBITED FOR INJURED WORKERS

   The mechanism of opioid action is through a receptor mechanism that we all have, namely, mu, delta, and kappa receptors. Human opioid receptors are endogenous (meaning that their mechanism comes from within the system and does not require an external source) and can be activated by endogenous peptides such as the enkephalins, dynorphins and endorphins. These substances are released by neurones and are made available for pain modification. Endogenous opioid peptides comprise a class called endorphins.  

  This class of neurochemical stimulation is available to injured persons and can be mobilized into action without prescribing the likes of vicodin, oxycodone, oxycontin, or similar controlled substances (or illegal non-controlled substances). This level of neurochemical stimulation can be triggered to release endogenous substances in the human body that relieve pain.  For instance, physical therapy, aquatic therapy, or massage can have this favorable effect. When this method doesn't work, analgesic medication including opioids may then  be prescribed.

  The trouble is that in the case of injured workers covered by workers comp, these alternative methods to opioid prescribing are often rejected by Utilization Review (UR). Then that rejection by UR gets rubber-stamped by anonymous Independent Medical Review (IMR) doctors whose prejudices cannot be addressed since their names are kept secret. When the PTP or Primary Treating Physician's attempt to prescribe an alternative to analgesic relief is denied authorization, the next step is pharmacological, usually NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories), then opioids if the NSAIDs fail. That's when the bureaucratic howling begins. What should happen instead is that the UR and IMR doctors who denied treatment by physical therapy or massage should be relieved from duty. 

"Turn the Tide," a publication of The Office of the Surgeon General, discloses resources for the proper prescribing of opioids for pain, chronic pain in particular. For instance, once opioids are prescribed, they should only be continued if "meaningful improvements in pain and function without significant risks or harm" can be documented. Interestingly, the brochure distributed by The Office of the Surgeon General, states in red capital letters, "Start Low and Go Slow."

In fact, in The Weinmann Report, 6/26/17, "Opioid Denials and Obstruction of Alternative Treatments," we discussed how The Washington Post in 2001 made a front-page headline about a doctor in California who was being sued for not prescribing enough pain medication. Two years earlier the Oregon Medical Board actually disciplined a physician for not prescribing enough medication to relieve pain. We also cited a peer-reviewed reference from HEADACHE that stated that opioids were useful in pain management but that that its use had to be slow, slow, slow -- this advice was 17 years ahead of "Turn the Tide" and 10 years before Paduda's original article. 

In a panic-ridden piece entitled "Narcotic use is rampant in workers compensation," we are told that "the problem is showing up in a doubling of emergency room admissions due to prescription drug abuse, driven primarily by oxycodone, methadone, and hydrocodone." This particular article makes no reference to the Utilization Review denials for physical therapy, massage, and alternative treatments that force patients into the pharmaceutical stream.

On the contrary, Dr. John Torres recommended massage therapy on MSNBC with moderator Craig Melvin on August 1st, 2017. It isn't clear whether or not Dr. Torres knew he was recommending a treatment often rejected by workers comp Utilization Review. Since we  had the privilege of evaluating just this kind of patient recently, we'll see what happens if and when the PTP asks for overturn of the denial of massage therapy.

Readers should not be surprised. Since the emphasis now placed on evidence-based-medicine, the reliance on the winds of fashion and bureaucracy has increased. Discipline for not providing enough pain medication has been supplanted by a new chorus chanting for discipline for doctors who provide too much.  

References

The Weinmann Report, 6/26/17, "Opioid denials and obstruction of alternative treatments"

"Controversies in headache medicine," summer, 2000, HEADACHE, V. 11, # 2, Lawrence Robbins, MD (opioids can be used:  "when they are not overused, the opioids are a safe medication")

"Doctor's  duty to ease pain at issue in Calif. lawsuit," Susan Okie, Washington Post, 05/07/2001

"Oregon Board disciplines doctor for not treating patient's pain,"  New York Times, 09/04/99

"Narcotic use is rampant in workers compensation," Joseph Paduda, October, 2010

"Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain," TURN THE TIDE, Office of the Surgeon General, CDC

Commentary by Dr. John Torres, 1 August 2017, MSNBC TV (recommends massage for pain relief) 

How so-called "guidelines" become hard-and-fast "regulations"

Our previous post showed how Utilization Review decisions sometimes turn out to be regarded and applied as actual practice mandates and how 80% of such decisions are actually denials of care that get upheld by Independent Medical Review. 

The quizzical situation is that many of the UR doctors are not licensed in California. Neither are many of the IMR doctors. More to the point is that the UR doctors and their IMR colleagues often reject diagnostic studies and treatment that has been recommended by MPN (medical provider network) doctors that have been selected by the same companies that approved the UR panels that then denied treatment. Practicing doctors and their patients who know that an injury is real have long since figured out that cost-control, not patient care, is the name of the game. Even the AMA has gotten into the game, purveying and selling to any and all willing buyers a book called Guidelines to Impairment. This book has proved to be a goldmine for insurance companies and their employers who don't want to pay for whatever they can get away with denying as a "covered" item.

Meanwhile, seeing the business success of the AMA Guidelines, other organizations have jumped onto the regulatory bandwagon, e.g, the ABMS boards who now sell "recertification" and "maintenance of certification" programs to their own members. In fact, the eagerness with which physicians' own organizations have sought to subjugate its own members has actually provoked enough ire among physicians that 14 states have already passed legislation modifying the greed-encrusted thrust of the ABMS boards to sequester themselves as well paid bosses (about $800,000 for the ABMS chief, see previous post).

Likewise professional organizations such as the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) which recently published a "position paper" on chronic pain and opioid medication -- without submitting a draft to the California Neurology Society (CNS). THAT caught the attention of  then CNS president Robyn Young, MD, who also reviewed a similar advisory from the Medical Board of California (MBC) which seemed more in line with CNS practices than the AAN paper which was widely regarded as one-sided and biased.

That situation in turn led to CNS' asking its own Director of Government Relations to testify at the MBC hearing in October of 2014. The MBC considered several subjects one of which was a unified and reasonable approach to the treatment and management of chronic pain. Accordingly, the CNS Director of Government Relations, Steve Cattolica, stated "these guidelines are not the only treatment of this issue prescribing controlled substances for non-cancer pain." It was acknowledged that such guidelines, however,"should represent the standard of care for physicians in California ... that fact begs the question how these guidelines will be used or IF they will be used as the Board has intended."

Cattolica then pointed out that "our constituents with heavy emphasis in treating injured workers face a difficult situation" because "any inconsistency will cause all physicians to perhaps compromise the standard of care." Using the Division of Workers Comp (DWC) as an example Cattolica stated how "the DWC's treatment guidelines have a long and proven track record of being misapplied ... to control costs and identify physicians they no longer want in their medical provider networks."

The MBC chair, Ms. Yaroslavsky, was quoted as having said that guidelines are just that, guidelines, not regulations. Cattolica then stated why vigilance is essential: "the physician community's experience with the application of treatment guidelines in the workers' compensation system is as rigid criteria." In other words, it needs to be emphasized that AAN Policy Paper on the use of opioids in non-cancer pain is a guideline, not a regulation, and that the same goes for the guidelines proposed by the MBC. It can be anticipated that the MBC and the AAN recommendations will compete for attention from treating physicians. Either way the mere presence of written guidelines opens the way for automatic rejections of treatment by utilization reviewers in all walks of medical practice including government plans such as Medicare and Medicaid, or managed care plans such as HMOs and PPOs, or workers compensation where remote control medicine is already rife among UR doctors and their legally anonymous IMR counterparts.

Cattolica advised a change in wording-- drop the phrase "very consistent" from the recommended statement of Guidelines and replace it with the word, "equivalent." 

UTILIZATION REVIEW: HYPOCRISY IN VELVET GLOVES

"OBVIOUS BAD FAITH" in workers comp re injured workers is revealed in this story about how an insurance company denied care without making any attempt to reach the PTP (primary treating physician) before issuing a decision. We are not stating the patient's name for obvious reasons. We're not stating the name of the insurance company because they all do it so there's no sense in just one taking today's hit. We're not naming the doctor because we don't have permission. But what we do have is full documentation which can eventually be made available. In the meantime, we'll make this story and details known where it may do some good.


SETTING THE SCENE


A  request was made to prescribe hydrocodone, capsaicin, and lidoderm. The insurance company's Utilization Review (UR) doctor reviewed the request and called the prescribing doctor's office at 10 PM. The UR doctor reported later than no one was there to take the call so he left a message. The prescribing doctor asked later whether or not it was reasonable to make such a call at 10 PM and reported also that no message was left. In other words, the UR doc called at an unreasonable time and then faked or lied about having left a message.  


THE BOGUS APPEAL DENIAL


When the PTP became aware of  the denial, an appeal was filed.  The response by the UR doctor came by telephone at 4:34 AM! This second UR doctor said that a message was left because there was no one present to take the 4:34 AM phone call. Once again no message was left, not that calling PTPs at 4 AM should be considered acceptable practice.  


UTILIZATION REVIEW'S STANDARD OF PRACTICE is woefully short on both ethics and knowledgeable practice. In the case at hand the PTP is knowledgeable re the standards of care re managing pain. The UR doctor's response appeared knowledgeable from textbook information but was seriously flawed in its application to the now denied patient. The denial was rammed through without a good faith effort to confer with the PTP. Two UR doctors made phone calls at unreasonable hours and then claimed to have left messages. The PTP doubts the latter assertion. So does this author. Our experience is that UR is repeatedly conducted in bad faith and to the best of our belief with the knowledge and connivance of the insurance companies.


The recent passage of SB 863 allows Independent Medical Review (IMR) to support bad or bogus UR decisions and then deny the patient not only treatment but also his day in court.  Both UR and IMR are sties in the eye of medicine and need strict utilization control themselves. Better yet, both should be repealed.

AB 369 (HUFFMAN) RE "STEP THERAPY" VETOED

ASSEMBLYMAN JARED HUFFMAN found out too late that his vote in favor of SB 863 helped seal the doom of his own bill, AB 369, which was intended to put an end to the merciless use of "step therapy," the method favored by insurance companies to restrict access of patients to  medications prescribed by their personal physicians. 

When Governor Brown signed SB 863 into law, the light went out not only for AB 1687 (Fong) but also for AB 369 (Huffman).  Governor Brown's veto message of AB 1687 said that the bill wasn't necessary because SB 863 was now the law. Both bills passed the legislature on a bipartisan basis, but both bills were vetoed by Gov. Brown. In this piece, we'll discuss AB 369 which this writer supported (see June 2011 issue of www.politicsofhealthcare.com).

"Step therapy" is the process by which patients are required by insurance companies, HMOs, PPOs, or others to try specified generic medications before they're allowed to try better, newer, or more expensive medications that may have actually been prescribed by their treating doctors.  The purpose is cost control even if patients are harmed in the process.

 In his veto message for AB 369 Brown acknowledged that "this bill would prohibit a health plan or insurer from requiring a patient to try and 'fail' more than two medications before allowing a patient to have the pain medication prescribed by his or her doctor." In fact, the part about "two medications" was already a compromise, but that wasn't enough for the insurance companies, health plans, or Governor Brown who is seeking their support for other issues.

In the veto message, the Governor used one of the worst aspects of SB 863 to justify his veto decision against AB 369. Here's what he said: "Independent medical reviews are available to resolve differences in clinical judgment when they occur, even on an expedited basis."

Keep in mind that in workers comp the names of the independent medical reviewers are supposed to be kept secret. Keep in mind that in the private plans the decision means that patients will be obliged to rely on medications that their personal physicians had purposefully not prescribed.

Brown said that "any limitations on the practice of  'step-therapy' should better reflect a health plan or insurer's legitimate role in determining the allowable steps." In other words, we're told that the health plan's cost-control panel has a "legitimate role" in overruling the strictly medical decisions of our personal physicians. That's the law that Governor Brown favors. Moreover, had AB 369 become law, it would have run counter to the aims and objectives of SB 863 which puts anonymous and often non-California licensed doctors who have not interviewed or examined the patients in control of properly licensed treating physicians who've actually interviewed and examined the patients.

Starting 1 January 2013, an Independent Medical Review system will replace the current Utilization Review (UR) system. The chief differences are that the IMR doctors will have their names protected and will only be able to be challenged for bias, fraud, or conflict of interest, a challenge that may be difficult to undertake if the the doctors' names are protected. The current system of UR is subject to challenge in court.

Governor Brown's veto of AB 369 is harmful to patients and is favorable to the financial interests of the insurance companies and health plans. IMR doctors and their employers should be subject to challenge in court.  Governor Brown's veto prevents lawyers from using AB 369 to litigate against the restrictive treatment provisions incorporated into SB 863. 

Huffman joins Fong in that both legislators cast incompatible votes and helped in the downfall of their own respective bills. The master legislator in this case turns out to be Brown. Wie Schade (too bad).