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Since January 2015, Kaiser has been running what it calls a one-of-a-kind integrated pain-service class aimed at helping its high-risk opioid patients better manage their pain through alternative treatments and understand the risks of the drugs. The idea is to show patients they don’t necessarily need a pain pill to manage their pain. With Colorado and the nation in the grips of a prescription painkiller epidemic — which has been blamed for a resurgence of heroin and skyrocketing overdose deaths — those running the program hope it can be a way to stem the rising tide and prevent overdoses and addiction. (Paul, 11/30)

It’s still quiet and calm here at Insite, North America’s first supervised drug-injection center, but that’s just because it’s 7:45 a.m. on a Thursday and the doors haven’t opened yet. In less than an hour, the first of the day’s 376 clients will be lined up, clutching hidden stashes of heroin and other drugs, anxious to slide into one of more than a dozen mirrored, lighted booths and shoot up. Some come by more than once. Visits for the day will total 610. Three addicts will overdose — and be revived...Such a scene could soon be a reality in Seattle and King County — albeit on a much smaller scale. A local task force in September recommended opening what could be the first public sites in the U.S. where drug addicts can inject and smoke hard drugs under supervision, and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray went to Vancouver to take a look. (Aleccia, 11/30)

The parents of a 26-year-old woman who died after pleading for medical help while detoxing from heroin at the Washington County Jail filed a $20 million lawsuit Wednesday against the county and Corizon Health. Madaline Pitkin died on April 24, 2014, on her seventh day at the Washington County Jail after her arrest on a warrant and heroin possession charge. (Woolington, 11/30)

Illinois regulators have yanked a suburban Chicago doctor’s license for running a cash-only pill mill and prescribing vast amounts of fentanyl and other addictive painkillers to patients in 11 states. Illinois is sharing information about Dr. Paul C. Madison with Indiana, where he has an office. Michigan barred Madison from practicing last year. (Johnson, 11/30)