JCAHO and the Opioid Crisis

I remember in the 1990's when JCAHO and the NEW hospital administrators--oftentimes nurses fired from clinical duties and this was their new gig to avoid unions penalizing the HR hospital division--scolding physicians for withholding pain meds, patients were groaning in pain, you evil inhumane monsters!

GIVE THE PATIENT NON ADDICTING PERCOCET AND YOU'LL KEEP YOUR JOB!!!

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/opioids/7-things-to-know-about-the-history-of-the-joint-commission-pain-standards.html

20 years later we're in a big fat mess. Not created by any one player, but I would wager the regulatory push to count pain as the "sixth vital sign" along with rewards for prescribing--the latter no longer exists--now as penance they count the free pens a pharmaceutical co. may give out and post this online in compliance with "the Sunshine act" (because sunshine is the best disinfectant!). Too late, the cat is out of the bag. The addicted patients go to the local Kwik Stop convenience and with some hand and eye gestures a drug dealer can appear and proffers heroin from Mexico, for cheap. I see these transactions when I go to to get gas. The a"authorities" know but what is the use? Arrest, bail, back on the street in 10 days.

No one solution will correct this complicated monster. But it will have to start with enforcement of law. If lowly me can identify the drug pushers when I stop for 5 minutes to get gas for my car, so can "the authorities". Get serious about inspecting every single thing that crosses the border--animal, vegetable or mineral. And yes, stop counting pain as a vital sign. Distractions, breathing, ice, Tylenol...that's what my Mom did when I was a kid and I hurt myself. We're going to have to start saying NO to pills and NO to JCAHO and NO to patients that whine. And also NO to that truck coming from Guerrero, Mexico.

The 90 day Update

I wrote about this last year. The government mandate that states all physicians' demographic information must be updated every 90 days, even if no changes have occurred.
Now they send smooth and yet slightly threatening emails. Every time the 90 days have elapsed, when I log into the portal a big red box on the top of screen appears. Not enough. Email reminders now clog my inbox like hair on the shower drain. Harass harass harass.

Here's the screenshot:

Updating your profile early helps you avoid distractions Hello,  To ensure accuracy for patients, state and federal laws require health plans to check the information in their provider directories every 90 days. That means lots of phone calls, emails, faxes, and letters asking you to update and verify the information your payers have on file…every quarter. There’s an easy way to cut down on the noise. Use Availity to verify your profile, and we’ll send that information to all participating payers. You can even download your verified profile, then print or email it to your other payers when they call. It only takes about 15 minutes to get through the process, because we pre-populate the forms with the information payers already have about your business and physicians. So when something changes, it takes just a few clicks to make sure your payers are updated. Remember that it’s important to verify and update your profile each quarter, even if nothing has changed. So log in to the Availity Provider Portal now to verify and update your profile—we’ll update your payers, and you’ll have your day back. Just another example of the thousand paper cuts that results in the doctor becoming paralyzed.