Anthem Pain Management Portal

The purpose of this site is to provide Anthem Providers best practice information and tools to institute a basic pain management program in their practice or to refer to a pain management specialist if so desired. This site will focus on opioid abuse. First you should know a few facts:
  1. Prescription abuse and Opioid Abuse, according to the National Institute of Health, impacts all Americans, because we all pay the cost for it.
  2. Nearly 100 Americans die each day from opioid overdose - 60% men, 40% women.
  3. In 2012, 259 million opioid pain medication prescriptions were written, enough for every adult in America to have a bottle of pills.
  4. Prescription use and addiction is linked to at least half of the major crimes in this country, as at least half of the suspects arrested for violent crimes, such as homicide and assault, were under the influence of drugs when they were arrested.
  5. Stress is a major factor in Prescription use and abuse.
  6. Sadly, nearly two-thirds of people in Prescription abuse treatment report that they were physically or sexually abused as children. Child abuse is a major contributing factor to Opioid Abuse.
  7. Total US societal costs of prescription opioid abuse were estimated at $55.7 billion in 2007 (USD in 2009). Workplace costs accounted for $25.6 billion (46%), health care costs accounted for $25.0 billion (45%), and criminal justice costs accounted for $5.1 billion (9%). Workplace costs were driven by lost earnings from premature death ($11.2 billion) and reduced compensation/lost employment ($7.9 billion). Health care costs consisted primarily of excess medical and prescription costs ($23.7 billion). Criminal justice costs were largely comprised of correctional facility ($2.3 billion) and police costs ($1.5 billion). (Source is available at this link)

    Resource: The Cost of Prescription Drug Abuse: A literature Review. White Paper Jan 6, 2011 - To gather information on the cost to society of prescription drug abuse, a literature review was conducted of online informational sources, including federal agencies, and numerous electronic databases for scholarly articles (PubMed, EconLit, PsychInfo, JSTOR, CINAHL) published between 2000 and 2010. Categorical search terms employed included prescription drugs, psychotherapeutics, analgesics or opioids, economics or costs, epidemiology, and others.

  8. Prescription Drug Abuse - Real Physicians Speak Out - view this video for a summary of the scope of the problem (will open in a new window). This video is courtesy of Quest Diagnostics.
  9. CDC Guideline For Prescribing Opioids For Chronic Pain.
    1. CDC Guideline Resources.
 
Now, use the page titles to explore this site. They are arranged in order to assist you in setting up a basic pain management program.