NAMSAP presents webinar on opioid issue June 21

ELMHURST - The National Alliance of Medicare Set-Aside Professionals continues its three-part webinar series "Opioids in the Life of the MSA" at 1 p.m. June 21.

The series explores the issue of long-term opioid use for noncancerous pain in workers' compensation MSAs and how the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are addressing it. Part one discussed how applying evidence-based medicine improves MSA outcomes.

Part two focuses on current policy and federal efforts to manage the opioid epidemic. Presenters are Mary Nix, health science administrator, National Guidelines Clearinghouse, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Pamela Schweitzer, assistant surgeon general and chief pharmacist officer, United States Public Health Service, along with the Workers' Compensation Research Institute's Policy Analyst Vennela Thumula and Economist Dongchun Wang. The 90-minute webinar covers:

"In light of the recent evidence-based studies demonstrating the long-term impact of opioid prescriptions for chronic, non-cancer pain, our industry needs to come together to ensure we neither condone nor institutionalize the problem," said NAMSAP President Gary Patureau. "All the players in the MSA process have an obligation to aged and disabled injured persons to work toward healthier, safer and more effective patient outcomes."

NAMSAP has recommended that CMS adopt limits on opioids in MSAs based on opioid guidelines published by the Centers for Disease Control.

"We regularly triage cases where an injured employee takes both short- and long-acting opioids for chronic, non-cancer pain," said Rita Wilson, NAMSAP board member and CEO of Tower MSA Partners. "We hope this webinar series will heighten awareness among policymakers of inappropriate opioid use in workers' compensation and encourage CMS to align its WCMSA review policies with evidence-based medicine."

There is a $63 webinar fee for NAMSAP members and an $83 fee for non-members. For more information, visit http://www.namsap.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=820324.