White Paper Summary: Intractable Pain Treatment Act

White Paper Summary on 

INTRACTABLE PAIN TREATMENT ACT

The Intractable Pain Treatment Act (ITPA) was established May 21, 2001.1 The legislation includes the “Pain  Patient’s Bill of Rights” outlining guarantees for patients suffering severe chronic intractable pain. Reasons cited for this legislation included removing the fear of physicians in prescribing opiate medication for their patients who suffered severe chronic intractable pain. The safety of opiate medication was noted within the legislation.  The legislation gave patients a great amount of responsibility to choose opiate medications as a first line of treatment even though other modalities of pain relief exist. Physicians are required by the legislation to either provide requested opiate medication or refer to physicians who will. Since the passage of the legislation,  Tennessee has experienced multiple negative consequences. 

Tennessee ranks 2nd in the U.S. for the rate of opioid pain relievers sold per 10,000  persons (26 lbs./10,000 persons) 2 

Prescription opioids rank as the #1 abused drug among individuals receiving state-funded treatment services in 2012 3 

Number of treatment admissions resulting from opiate abuse jumped from 5.5 percent to  28 percent from 2000-2010, compared to 1.5 percent to 8 percent elsewhere in the United States

Increases in Opiate Use 

According to 2010 data comparing people in state-funded treatment programs across the United States, Tennesseans were more than three times more likely to identify prescription opioids as their primary substance of abuse than the national average. 4

1 Herron, Senator Roy and Representative Mark Maddox. (2001, June 21). Intractable Pain Treatment Act. Public Acts, 2001, Chapter 327 Audio Recording of the General Welfare,  Health and Human Resources Senate Committee. Nashville, TN, USA: LexisNexis. 

2 Paulozzi, M. C., Leonard J. (2011, November 1). Vital Signs: Overdoses of Prescription Opioid Pain Relievers . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality  Weekly Report, p. 4. 

3 Varney, Commissioner, E. Douglas. (2012). Governors Public Safety Forum, Governors Public Safety Action Plan with a Concentration on: Prescription Drug Abuse. Nashville:  Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Research Team. 

4 Tennnessee Department of Health. (2012, May 9). Controlled Substance Monitoring Database (CSMD) and Prescription Safety Act Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved  November 3, 2014, from Tennessee Department of Health Controlled Substance Monitoring Database Program: http://health.state.tn.us/boards/Controlledsubstance/faq.shtml