Questions about pain management will be removed from hospital patient satisfaction surveys, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Physicians and lawmakers, including Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, asked CMS to examine the questions over concerns that they encouraged physicians to prescribe opioids.
Jeff Austin of the Maine Hospital Association says the problem with the questions about treatment of pain on hospital satisfaction surveys is that unless patients reported that their pain was always well managed, hospitals were penalized.
“And that’s an absolutist approach, and probably not the right approach for something that is a common and expected experience when you’re healing, which is pain,” he says.
By asking that type of question, says Lisa Letourneau of Maine Quality Counts, it likely influenced prescribing habits in favor of opioids.
“It really puts a lot of pressure on providers, the way the current question is worded,” she says.
That could have inadvertently helped fuel the current opioid abuse epidemic. That concern led Collins to organize a bipartisan group of 26 senators, including independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine, to ask the Department of Health and Human Services in February to examine its questions about pain management in hospital satisfaction surveys.
With the news that those questions will now be removed, Collins said in a written statement she’s “pleased that HHS has taken action to eliminate this possible contributing factor” to the opioid abuse crisis.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services say they are developing alternative questions about pain management for future surveys.
