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One year after the state attorney general’s office filed subpoenas against five large drug companies to discover how addictive painkillers have been marketed in the state, the pharmaceutical giants have handed over nothing more than legal briefs. ... [Assistant Attorney General James] Boffetti’s three-person team is badly outnumbered by lawyers representing the pharmaceutical companies as they fight to get access to internal company documents. (Nilsen, 7/14)

People fighting addiction who get subsidized insurance will no longer have to pay for outpatient medication and counseling starting next year, a move officials hope will reverberate throughout the insurance market. The Massachusetts Health Connector, a state agency serving people who don’t obtain insurance through an employer, is requiring Connector insurers to eliminate all out-of-pocket costs for medication-assisted treatment that includes drugs such as methadone or Suboxone along with counseling. The Connector’s governing board approved the plan unanimously Thursday. The requirement applies only to health plans that come with federal and state subsidies, which together enroll 169,000 people, a small fraction of the 4.2 million Massachusetts residents who buy commercial insurance. (Freyer, 7/15)

Orleans Parish Coroner Dr. Jeffrey Rouse says he's pleased the city's homicide rate is down so far in 2016, but his office's resources are still being stretched to handle a sharp increase in the number of overdose deaths involving opioids. The coroner said there were 65 opioid deaths in New Orleans this year as of May 21, compared with just 47 homicides over the same period. (LaRose, 7/14)

Pennsylvania will open 20 centers around the state by fall to coordinate care for people addicted to opioids, the Wolf administration announced Thursday. The centers -- six of them in Southeastern Pennsylvania -- will not be new locations, but instead are existing organizations that will function as navigational hubs to coordinate a range of services for Medicaid patients. (Sapatkin, 7/15)

It’s a common scenario: Someone checks into a hospital for surgery or an illness and leaves with a prescription for an opioid painkiller, opening the door to long-term use and dependence. A recent study examined this pattern and found the prescriptions are used and renewed more often than you might imagine. ... The results, first published online in JAMA Internal Medicine in June, showed that 14.9 percent of the hospitalized [Medicare] beneficiaries filled a prescription for an opioid within a week after being discharged. Of those who filled the first prescription, 42.5 percent had another pharmacy claim for an opioid painkiller at least 90 days later. (Andrews, 7/15)