April 2019

• We conducted briefings for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, lawyers at the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Disability Policy Group that includes representatives from each federal agency and the military branches.

• After meetings with our team, the CDC issued public-facing statements acknowledging that its 2016 Prescribing Guideline had been misapplied by policymakers in ways that endanger patient health and safety. In a press release and article in The New England Journal of Medicine, the CDC came out against:

• Strict limits on opioid prescribing for acute pain.

• Strict application of the CDC’s dosage guidance, i.e. treating the recommended dose of 90 MME/day as mandatory.

• Mandatory or abrupt opioid dose reduction (tapering) and patient abandonment.

• The CDC also noted that the Guideline was wrongly applied to cancer and sickle cell patients, and that it was not intended to deny access to opioids for anyone with chronic pain. 

• The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning against abrupt opioid tapering and announced a label change to protect patients.