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In Search of a New Ethic for Treating Patients with Chronic Pain: What Can Medical Boards Do?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Ann M. Martino
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Extract

A decade ago, conventional wisdom in the medical establishment was that physicians treating chronic pain with opioid analgesics were at a substantial risk of being sanctioned for overprescribing by state medical regulatory boards. Dozens of articles written since have alluded to this risk as an obstacle to effective pain re1ief. In the early 1990s, a number of high profile cases in which physicians were disciplined by regulatory boards for overprescribing to patients with chronic pain were reported in the press. Although the board actions in many of these cases were eventually overturned by state judiciaries, the publicity heightened practitioners’. sensitivity to the regulatory risks associated with prescribing opioids.

A review of the available data on state medical board actions nationwide for the period from 1990 to 1996 reveals that the perception of regulatory risk far exceeds the reality. Indeed, relatively few (less than 5 percent) of the disciplinary actions taken for overprescribing by state medical boards in any given year directly concern the treatment of chronic pain—malignant or nonmalignant—in patients.

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Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , Winter 1998 , pp. 332 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1998

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References

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