CDC issues opioid guidelines for chronic pain

From the MMWR:

Opioids are commonly prescribed for pain. An estimated 20% of patients presenting to physician offices with noncancer pain symptoms or pain-related diagnoses (including acute and chronic pain) receive an opioid prescription (1). In 2012, health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for opioid pain medication, enough for every adult in the United States to have a bottle of pills (2). Opioid prescriptions per capita increased 7.3% from 2007 to 2012, with opioid prescribing rates increasing more for family practice, general practice, and internal medicine compared with other specialties (3). Rates of opioid prescribing vary greatly across states in ways that cannot be explained by the underlying health status of the population, highlighting the lack of consensus among clinicians on how to use opioid pain medication (2).

Consumer Health Information regarding Zika Virus

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Outreach and Enrollment for Reaching the Medicaid Eligible but Uninsured

As of February 2016, a total of 31 states and the District of Columbia are moving forward with the ACA Medicaid expansion to adults. While millions of individuals have gained Medicaid coverage since initial implementation of the ACA coverage provisions in 2014, an estimated 8.8 million individuals who are eligible for coverage through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) remained uninsured as of 2015.¹ These include adults made newly eligible by the expansion as well as children and adults who were already eligible under pre-ACA rules but not enrolled. Reaching and enrolling these individuals into coverage will be one important component of achieving continued coverage gains moving forward. Moreover, as additional states may take up the expansion in the future, outreach and enrollment efforts will be key for achieving successful enrollment as the expansion is implemented. Keeping eligible individuals enrolled over time through successful renewals of coverage also will be important for maintaining coverage gains achieved to date.