HOUSE MEMORIAL 44

54th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2019

INTRODUCED BY

Joanne J. Ferrary and Deborah A. Armstrong

A MEMORIAL

REQUESTING THE NEW MEXICO LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL TO CHARGE THE LEGISLATIVE HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE WITH HOLDING HEARINGS DURING THE 2019 INTERIM THAT RELATE TO INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR NON-OPIOID PAIN MANAGEMENT AND TO DISCUSS AND RECOMMEND POLICY SOLUTIONS FOR PROVIDING MORE NEW MEXICO RESIDENTS WITH ACCESS TO SAFE, AFFORDABLE AND EFFECTIVE PAIN MANAGEMENT.

     WHEREAS, many New Mexico residents are living with chronic pain, ranging from mild, tolerable conditions to severe, debilitating and often intolerable pain; and

     WHEREAS, pain management is one of the most important areas of health care delivery, as pain that is left untreated can lead to great suffering, disability and desperate measures to numb or lessen the pain; and

     WHEREAS, according to the university of New Mexico's extension for community healthcare outcomes telehealth program, known worldwide as "project ECHO", more than seventy percent of visits to hospital emergency departments are due to pain concerns; and

     WHEREAS, in recent years, New Mexico has experienced a terrible crisis in opioid dependence and deaths due to opioid overdose, with one New Mexican dying from a drug overdose every eighteen hours and two-thirds of those deaths arising from the use of either prescription or illicit opioids, according to the department of health; and

     WHEREAS, a great many of the cases of opioid dependence and overdose in New Mexico have arisen from attempts to manage pain; and

     WHEREAS, there are many alternatives to opioids for pain management, and experts in many fields of health care argue that many of these pain management alternatives are far superior to opioids in terms of efficacy and safety; and

     WHEREAS, alternatives to opioids for pain management include a wide range of interventions, including physical therapy, acupuncture, naprapathic medicine, chiropractic, non-opioid analgesics, electrical signals, radio waves, nerve blocks, yoga, deep breathing, spinal cord stimulation, hypnosis, perineural injection treatment, topical creams and prolotherapy; and

     WHEREAS, very often, patients report that pain management techniques such as prolotherapy, which is an injection therapy intended to repair connective tissue, or perineural injection therapy, which works through injections to reduce inflammation, have been used for many years in countries around the world but are not available in the United States to many patients because insurance companies label these techniques that are time-tried abroad as "experimental" or "investigative" and will not cover these techniques — while continuing to cover the cost of prescriptions for opioids; and

     WHEREAS, when insurance companies refuse to evaluate the use of pain management techniques that have well-documented efficacy worldwide and refuse to cover these pain management techniques labeled as "experimental" or "investigative", many New Mexico residents are barred from seeking these alternatives to opioids as they are cost-prohibitive when purchased out-of-pocket;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the New Mexico legislative council be requested to charge the legislative health and human services committee with holding hearings during the 2019 interim that relate to insurance coverage for non-opioid pain management; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the New Mexico legislative council be requested to charge the legislative health and human services committee with convening experts from the fields of pain management, including experts in alternative or non-opioid pain management techniques that have well-documented efficacy worldwide, as well as experts in health care in general, in opioid dependence and in health insurance coverage and regulation to discuss and recommend policy solutions for providing more New Mexico residents with access to safe, affordable and effective pain management; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the speaker of the house of representatives, the president pro tempore of the senate, the chair of the legislative health and human services committee and the superintendent of insurance.

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