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Public commenters press board on opioid-settlement effects, pain-guideline rollout, long COVID education and complaint-form redesign
Summary
Public commenters at the Medical Board of California’s quarterly meeting urged the board to investigate harms from the National Opioid Settlements injunctive relief, to push a stronger rollout of opioid prescribing guidelines, to add AB 3119 (long COVID continuing education) to the board’s legislative agenda, and to include patient advocates in the complaint-form redesign.
Public comment at the Medical Board of California’s quarterly meeting covered a range of health-policy topics. Several speakers raised concerns about the National Opioid Settlements injunctive relief and its effects on prescribing and medication access. Other commenters urged the board to do more outreach about the board’s July 2023 controlled-substance prescribing guidelines and to ensure those guidelines support individualized care for chronic pain patients.
Pat Irving, an RN and member of the National Campaign to Protect People in Pain, told the board the settlement’s injunctive relief uses an algorithm to identify “suspicious physicians” without clinical context and that the settlement thresholds were causing medication shortages for legitimate patients. “The injunction’s restrictions ... are causing shortages of medication for legitimate patients and their respective physicians,” Irving said during public comment, and she asked the board to follow up.
Monte Goddard and Kirk Kitsac, both speakers in the chronic-pain community, urged more aggressive rollout and physician outreach for the 2023 prescribing guidelines to reduce the number of physicians unwilling to treat legacy pain patients and to improve access to individualized treatment. Goddard requested that new board members review prior meeting materials from February 2022 and May 2023 so they understand the guideline development process.
Susanna Zaretsky, presenting as the citizen sponsor of Assembly Bill 3119, asked the board to add AB 3119 to the board’s legislative agenda to require a long COVID continuing-education class for medical professionals; she said curriculum resources are already available from Project ECHO and the University of California.
Multiple callers from Consumer Watchdog and volunteers — including Denise Johnson, Monique Hines and Marion Hollingsworth — urged the board to include patient advocates in the redesign of the online complaint form and to publish metrics about the new complainant liaison unit, specifically how many complainants received interviews and how many declined. Several public speakers asked for additional public stakeholder meetings to provide deeper feedback on complaint form changes and on the physician health legislation.
Speakers asked the board to prioritize timely outreach and better transparency around complaint handling and the rollout of practice guidance. Board staff said they will continue to solicit stakeholder input and would provide further updates on the complaint-tracking system and complaint form integration into Breeze.
