Establishing Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to H.R. 4641 that will require the interagency task force created by this legislation to study and report on the coordination of information collected from state prescription drug monitoring programs, or PDMPs, as part of its effort to update best practices for pain management strategies.

State PDMPs play a critical role in preventing the diversion of pain medication as well as other controlled substances. Chief among their benefits, access to a State PDMP provides an invaluable resource to prescribing physicians by allowing them to review a patient's history of prescription drugs and to spot signs of opioid abuse so that they may proactively refer a patient to substance abuse treatment, if appropriate. They allow medical professionals to intervene before an addiction spirals out of control.

Now active in 49 States, PDMPs can also inform prescribing physicians if a patient has recently accessed pain medication elsewhere and help to detect potential doctor-shopping activities by individuals with no legitimate medical need. Further, PDMPs also play an important role in identifying forged or stolen prescriptions.

While information sharing between some adjacent State PDMPs currently exists to prevent illicit doctor-shopping activities from occurring across State lines, I believe it is time that we boost efforts to strengthen the sharing of information across all State PDMPs.

I recently met with physicians from my district who described from their experience how prevalent the issue of doctor shopping is, particularly in the State of California, and how it is becoming more and more common for individuals with histories of opioid abuse to attempt to receive illicit prescriptions in nearby States.

With passage of this amendment, I urge the task force to explore the benefits of potentially establishing a national PDMP that will vastly approve our ability to prevent and disincentivize doctor shopping in all regions of the country, and I look forward to working with other concerned Members on this important topic.

By requiring that the interagency task force include State PDMP information as it formulates its expert input and improves prescribing guidelines, we will be able to better understand what is and isn't working and how we may be able to harness the power of State PDMPs to develop an effective national response to the opioid crisis that has devastated communities across the country.

It is beyond doubt that prescription drug monitoring programs serve an invaluable purpose, and any effort to address overprescription must include consideration of important data that is gleaned across State PDMPs.

While I hope that this Congress will ultimately provide the necessary resources to assure we are able to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to prevent opioid addiction and increase access to treatment, the recommendations developed by the task force created under this bill are an important initial step that must come to pass before achieving that goal.

I urge support for this amendment and for the bill.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for her support as well as all of her good work in trying to address the opioid crisis in the United States.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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