Health Policy: Opioid Medications Bill Number: NJ Assembly Bill A640

Student Name
Health Policy: Opioid Medications
Institutional Affiliation
Health Policy: Opioid Medications
Bill Number: New Jersey Assembly Bill A640
Title: Requires health care practitioners prescribing opioid medications on first-time basis, or to minor children, to limit amount of prescribed medication to seven-day supply, except in certain circumstances.
Policy description and its main goals
The policy has three main goals. Firstly, it seeks to restrict the prescription of opioid medication for adult-outpatient use by healthcare practitioners to less than seven days. Secondly, the policy endeavors to limit the prescription of the same medication to minors to not more than seven days. Lastly, the policy seeks to have healthcare practitioners explaining the patients the risks associated with the prescriptions. The healthcare practitioner should ensure that the patient or parent/and guardian understands why the prescription is nonetheless necessary.
Who are the sponsors?
The bill has three sponsors. The first one is Representative David Wolfe who is one of the primary sponsors. As a Republican Party member, Rep. Wolfe represents the 10th Legislative District and remains the longest-serving member of the Assembly where he has served since 1992. The other primary sponsor is the Republican Party politician Representative Gregory McGuckin. The Republican Party politician Representative Erik Peterson is a cosponsor. In the Assembly, Rep Peterson represents the 23rd Legislative District. Hence, the Bill falls under the spectrum of a partisan Bill since both the two sponsors and the cosponsor are members of the Republican Party.
The population for the policy
The Bill targets both patients and healthcare professionals New Jersey State. The patients include those who need an opioid prescription for the first time. The patients could either be adults or children.
Ethical issues in the Bill
The bill challenges relieving vain, which is one of the fundamental duties of healthcare professionals. Over the past few decades, the control of pain has mostly improved. Since the development of opioids, physicians have prescribed opioids, not only for acute pain but also for chronic pain. The widespread prescription of opioids has created a form of “public health crisis” (Elder, DePalma & Pines, 2018). Opioid therapy presents significant costs to patients. It increases the risk for addiction and possible drowsiness, nausea and other side effects. Some patients may need to manage pain for a long time that the seven days the Bill provides. When the Bill limits the prescription to only seven days, it disadvantages a majority of patients who would be better with a longer prescription.
Additionally, the Bill seems to imply that opioids work the same for all patients. Even if an opioid prescription was second, it will still work for some individuals. The legislators failed to appreciate that patients are unique and not data points. The risks of opioid therapy for more than seven days, as well as not offering pain relief, differ from one patient to another. The failure to mitigate pain can have adverse effects on patients, and can sometimes lead to suicide (Conejero, Olié, Courtet & Calati, 2018). Some patients have been on opioid dosages for a long time. To such individuals, opioids are a life-saver. Limiting the amount of time the healthcare practitioners can prescribe the therapy may cause tampering, which is an uncomfortable process.
Furthermore, opioids are critical to acute, surgical, and post-traumatic pain. Such instances demand long-term treatment. In these cases, the use of opioid therapy is necessary because it makes life manageable for the patients (Phillips et al., 2017). While the Bill does not limit the use of opioids on such patients, there is a reason to worry because of the shifting attitudes. The Bill appears to advocate for an opioid-phobic culture. Hence, more healthcare professionals could abandon prescribing opioids even for patients who need them.
SWOT analysis
Strengths
The Bill is critical in curbing addiction resulting from prolonged opioid addiction. While healthcare practitioners seek effective ways of controlling pain, they may subject their patients to unexpected additions. Such patients may be forced to depend on more opioids or shift to drug abuse. Due to the adverse effects, opioid addiction presents to patients, the Bill provides a way forward on the way healthcare can address the issue. Healthcare practitioners will find alternatives for patients expediting pain and use opioids as a last resort.
Weaknesses
The bill fails to appreciate that some patients will need to take opioid dosages for a longer time. Limiting the medication for such patients would cause them more pain especially where the drug was meant to ease pain.
Opportunities
The legislators are in a better position to demonstrate the adverse effects of opioid prescriptions and win public support. The persistent issue of opioid over-prescription has created an escalating epidemic. In 2017, the prescriptions for opioids were 4.8 million in New Jersey. In the same year, the state experienced 1,969 deaths as a result of opioid overdose (Scholl et al., 2019). This implies that New Jersey State had a rate of 22 deaths per 100,000 persons as a result of opioids. The figure was above the national rate by 50%. In 2018, the state estimated that more than 3,000 individuals could have died because of overdose. The prescription of opioids fails to consider the holistic view of the patients and the communities they live. Sometimes, healthcare practitioners fail to understand what happens when patients with opioid prescriptions leave the hospital (Quinlan &...