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Older adults aren’t immune to addiction.
New bipartisan federal legislation introduced in January aims to improve access to non-opioid pain medication for Medicare Plan D beneficiaries, preventing unnecessary exposure to opioids.
Under the Alternatives to Prevent Addiction in the Nation (PAIN) Act, Medicare Part D beneficiaries would have their cost-sharing for non-opioid medication limited to no more than they would pay for the generic tier. The act would also prohibit the use of step therapy and prior authorization for non-opioid drugs, limiting patient exposure to opioids and giving them easier access to other options.
Chris Fox, executive director of the Voices for Non-Opioid Choices coalition, told Healthcare Brew that opioid prevention in healthcare ultimately comes down to two things: affordability and accessibility.
“When you tell a patient, ‘You can have that generic opioid for $1 […] or you can have access to this non-opioid, but that’s going to be $75,’ sometimes that dollar choice will dictate what a patient chooses,” Fox said. “Similarly, if you say, ‘We’ll get you access to [non-opioid] medications, but you have to get X number of doctors to sign on that prescription,’ [it hinders] patient access to those medications.”
More than 1.1 million older adults received an opioid use disorder diagnosis in 2021, according to a news release from California Democratic Representative Tony Cárdenas’s office. The percentage of US adults ages 65 and older who died from a natural or semisynthetic opioid overdose increased by 63% between 2012 and 2020, per the release.
The bill, which Cárdenas and Republican Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks from Iowa co-sponsored, will need “a companion piece” in the Senate before it goes to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.