The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new recommendations that strongly advise against the use of opioids for managing chronic pain have put hospitalists and other healthcare providers in the difficult position of turning to sometimes less effective treatment options.
Given today’s opioid epidemic, exercising caution when prescribing these drugs is important, but under- or inadequate prescribing will lead to poor pain-control outcomes, and potentially serious consequences for the subset of patients who might have benefited from opioid therapy.
