Ten ERs In Colorado Tried To Curtail Opioids And Did Better Than Expected
The collaboration known as ALTO, Alternatives to Opioids, set out to reduce opioid doses in the emergency room by 15 percent. It managed a 36 percent reduction instead.
Opioids
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California To Drug Users: We鈥檒l Pay For You To Test Your Dope
Fentanyl, a significant cause of overdoses and deaths across the country, has begun showing up in California street drugs. State health officials have responded with a bold but controversial policy: paying for test strips so users can check their stash.
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Opioid Crisis Hits Home: Uncle鈥檚 Overdose Spurs Medicaid Official To Change Course
Andrey Ostrovsky, who until last month was chief medical officer for Medicaid, quit his job so he could more directly fight the stigma of drug addiction.
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Hospital Honchos Hone New Message In Wake Of Opioid Epidemic: Expect Pain
"We really do have a lot of responsibility and culpability," says one hospital official who is part of a working group trying to address the opioid epidemic. Patients have to expect more pain after surgery and understand the risk of addiction, says another doctor.
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An Opioid Remedy That Works: Treat Pain And Addiction At The Same Time
Studies show promising results for a treatment approach that tackles chronic pain and addiction together, but obstacles stand in the way of this integrated care.
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Drug Overdose Deaths Soar Nationally But Plateau In Some Western States
Fatalities are climbing in states that have been flooded by the deadly opioid fentanyl, but are remaining flat 鈥 or even falling 鈥 in many Western states, where the drug has not yet been as common as other parts of the country.
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Readers Have Bones To Pick, From Health System Flaws To Covering Pot Beat
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
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Maine Voters Chose Medicaid Expansion. Why Is Their Governor Resisting?
Even though voters in Maine decided to expand Medicaid through a ballot measure, the law's fate is still unclear. Gov. Paul LePage says the Legislature must find funds for it without raising taxes. Advocates say the law is on their side and expansion must be implemented.
By Sarah Varney -
Reverberations From War Complicate Vietnam Veterans鈥 End-Of-Life Care
Vietnam veterans鈥 wartime experiences 鈥 and their lasting psychological toll 鈥 can make it harder to treat their physical and emotional pain as they approach death.
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Pharmacists Slow To Dispense Lifesaving Overdose Drug
Laws in California and most other states allow pharmacists to provide naloxone to patients or their friends without a doctor鈥檚 prescription. But many don鈥檛 do so, citing lack of demand and awareness among patients, their own fears of insufficient compensation and the challenges of treating opioid users.
By Anna Gorman -
Arizona Declares Opioid Emergency, But Signals Are Mixed Over Best Response
Arizona is one of a few states that have declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency. There's no uniformity in what that means from state to state, though, and even within Arizona, there's a wide divergence of opinion on how best to tackle the problem.
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Telemedicine For Addiction Treatment? Picture Remains Fuzzy
One Indiana addiction specialist doesn't shy away from telemedicine, but he still requires in-person visits to begin and maintain his patients' Suboxone prescriptions.
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Opioids After Surgery Left Her Addicted. Is That A Medical Error?
Doctors prescribed powerful opioids for a patient after back surgery but gave her little guidance on how to take them safely. Then, she says, they misdiagnosed her withdrawal symptoms. Some experts say this situation is akin to a hospital-acquired condition.
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Treating The New Hep C Generation On Their Turf
One Northern California physician is a foot soldier in the fight against a surge of hepatitis C, mainly among young drug users who share infected needles.
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Stopping Opioid Addiction At One Key Source: The Hospital
Based on research conducted at the University of Michigan鈥檚 medical center, a group of surgeons developed a strategy to help post-surgical patients from misusing or abusing their prescription painkillers.
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Doctors Make Big Money Testing Urine For Drugs, Then Ignore Abnormal Results
Medicare and insurers struggle to oversee a booming business in testing urine samples. In some cases, pain doctors鈥 lack of follow-through can turn fatal.
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Podcast: ‘What The Health?’ Meanwhile, In Other Health News鈥
In this episode of 鈥淲hat the Health?鈥 Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Alice Ollstein of Talking Points Memo and Sarah Jane Tribble of Kaiser Health News discuss some of the under-covered health stories of the past several weeks, including drug price issues, the opioid epidemic and women鈥檚 reproductive health.
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Doctor鈥檚 Rx For A Stiff Knee: A Prescription For 90 Percocet Pills
Following minor surgery, KHN鈥檚 consumer columnist sees how easily doctors offer pain pills, fueling epidemic of opioid addiction.
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Taking A Page From Pharma鈥檚 Playbook To Fight The Opioid Crisis
Doctors and pharmacists in Northern California are emulating drug company sales reps with a fresh purpose in mind: They visit medical offices in the hardest-hit counties to change their peers' prescribing habits and curtail the use of painkillers.
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Liquid Gold: Pain Doctors Soak Up Profits By Screening Urine For Drugs
With the nation's opioid crisis, urine testing has become a booming business and is especially lucrative for doctors who operate their own labs, a Kaiser Health News investigation finds. And dozens of practitioners have earned "the lion鈥檚 share" of their Medicare income exclusively from urine drug screens.
By Fred Schulte and Elizabeth Lucas