OPIOID DISCUSSION
Tonko discusses solutions to combat opioid epidemic
TROY, N.Y. >> U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko paid a visit to the Express Scripts facility in Troy, in a discussion centered around measures being taken to curtail the opioid epidemic crisis affecting the country.
Also on hand were those recovering from addiction as well from Friends of Recovery New York.
“The issue here is so great it needs to be done in a large frame, a continuum that would include public policy, so that we can move forward and provide hope, which I hope is the necessary ingredient that we’re trying to achieve,” Congressman Tonko said of the many moving parts needed to stop the epidemic from growing.
Tonko discussed what he has done in Congress to try to help solve the epidemic.
“My efforts on the energy and commerce committee were to make certain if we were to address this opioid epidemic, that we acknowledge that epidemic by having treatment made available. It bothered me that that effort wasn’t made. So in a separate bill that we had, we advanced an effort for medication assisted treatment that would allow for more people to be served, simply because of the numbers we had in our historic database,” Congressman Tonko said on the need to expand access to treatment.
Tonko also discussed how some legislation has helped limit the number of patients doctors can treat at a time.
“There was a cap imposed on doctors to only be
“For those who are incarcerated and who are Medicaid eligible, we will have a re-entry concept where 30 days before your release date they will start up with Medicaid provided treatment.” — U. S. Rep. Paul Tonko
able to serve 100 patients,” he said. “We have been able to raise that cap with legislation to 275 and there’s also efforts to make certain that we make that threshold permanent and that we go forward and offer different disciplines that could assist the M.D. community in responding to the epidemic.
“Disciplines like nurse mid-wives, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, having these various disciplines be part of the service community for those who are living with the illness of addiction is an important factor and so we worked very hard to make sure we had legislation that would expand, mentor and make certain that the quotas would be made permanent in terms of being able to go to 275.”
Tonko also spoke about added legislation which would help those incarcerated and Medicaid eligible, to be able to better transition back into society with treatment.
“For those who are incarcerated and who are Medicaid eligible, we will have a re- entry concept where 30 days before your release date they will start up with Medicaid provided treatment,” Congressman Tonko said. “I think it’s essential to do it because the data would prove that you’re more likely to succumb to an addiction after an in- carceration, in fact, 129% more likely in the first two weeks.”
S ne z a na Ma hon, PharmD, Vice President of Product Development at Express Scripts, talked about the company’s initiatives to help stem the epidemic.
Mahon spoke to how the federal legislation would align with their initiatives.
“The legislation includes two specific initiatives that Express Scripts has supported, one is the requirement of electronic prescribing in Medicare, we have seen this work in the state of New York, we’ve seen significant reduction in the overall opioid utilization and the second one is the standardization of electronic prior authorization in the Medicare space as well, that is going to allow us to continue for safer prescribing,” Mahon said.
“One of the solutions that I’m most proud of at Express Scripts is the advanced opioid management solution that we launched last year. There is no secret that our country is in the midst of an opioid epidemic. When you think of the United States, we make up 5 per- cent of the world’s population, yet we consume 80% of the world’s opioid supply and that is really something when we think about that staggering statistic,” Mahon added. “Just here in New York we had over 3,500 deaths between 2016 and 2017 and every day across the nation 115 deaths are occurring from an opioid overdose.”
Patrick Marks, Director of Pharmacy Practice at Express Scripts, also hailed the efforts of their pharmacists.
“We are especially proud of our pharmacists, the everyday work that they do here in Troy, as well as our company overall,” Marks said. “Their efforts to help curb the opioid epidemic is starting to be evident.”