Trump declaration of public health emergency on opioids could impact physicians

President Donald Trump followed through on a months-old promise to declare a national public health emergency on the opioid addiction epidemic, which could increase access to addiction treatment and additional training for physicians prescribing opioids.

“As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue. It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction,” Trump said at the White House on Oct. 26. “Never been this way. We can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic. We can do it.”

The declaration as a public health emergency matters. A broader national emergency declaration would’ve allowed the administration to use federal disaster relief funds, but instead, the announcement comes with no guarantee of new funding and will need to be renewed after 90 days.

Trump and his White House staff said the effort would include expanded access to telemedicine services, and “really tough, really big, really great advertising so we get to people before they start.” He also hinted it would address restrictions on inpatient addiction centers, which currently aren’t allowed to receive Medicaid payments if they have more than 16 beds.

Trump’s commission on opioid addiction had recommended those measures along with several other steps which could impact the healthcare industry, including mandating registered prescribers to take a course in “the proper treatment of pain” and requiring greater data sharing between state-run prescription drug monitoring programs.

The American Medical Association supported those moves while adding other sectors of the industry will need to do their part, such as insurers being “willing to cover pain treatments beyond opioid analgesics as well as long-term comprehensive treatment for opioid use disorder to promote recovery.”

“Ending the epidemic will require physicians, insurers, drug manufacturers, and the government to follow through with resources, evidence-based treatment plans and smart public policies at the national and state levels,” Patrice Harris, chair of the AMA’s opioid task force, said in a statement.

The declaration was criticized by some Democrats over the lack of guaranteed new funding. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, said the announcement “falls drastically short.”

“(Connecticut) families suffering from the opioid crisis deserve better than half-measures and empty rhetoric offered seemingly as an afterthought,” he tweeted.