Rural Pa. Still Needs Better Options for Pain Management

By WAYNE CAMPBELL

President, Pa. State Grange

While there are many advantages of living in rural Pennsylvania, we also face unique healthcare challenges, especially when it comes to chronic pain management.

There is an obvious connection between chronic pain and opioid abuse. Treating chronic pain means that often used medicines lose their effectiveness. This drives patients to other sources of relief.

Even though Pennsylvania, like the rest of America, is reeling because of the massive spike in COVID-19, neither the medical profession nor policymakers should let the opioid crisis be overshadowed by this other lethal enemy – COVID-19.

The 2016 National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.concluded that an estimated 24 percent of adults suffer from chronic pain and its impacts on the quality of personal and work life.

Additionally, high-impact chronic pain was found to be higher among rural residents than urban dwellers. For these millions of Americans living with chronic pain in rural communities, finding access to quality care can be challenging.

Healthcare workforce shortages are prevalent in rural America. There are less than 40 primary health physicians per 100,000 rural dwellers, according to the National Rural Health Association, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made matters worse. Rural medical facilities are overwhelmed by the increased caseloads stemming from COVID-19. This means rural patients are forced to travel longer distances and wait longer to receive care.

The conventional wisdom is that areas without adequate access to care can simply rely on telemedicine. Granted, use of technology is a tremendous resource which does help make up for difficulties from isolation or the health workforce shortage. However, telemedicine does not work if there is no access to high-speed broadband.

Our suggestions

The Pennsylvania State Grange suggests a two-fold way to address this issue.

First, the Pa. General Assembly must continue to make universal access to high-speed broadband a top priority as it began to do in the just-concluded legislative session. This is a necessary step before chronic pain treatment can reach its highest potential of effectiveness.

Second, when it comes to rural health care, legislation must be enacted to use telemedicine as it is intended. In the last two years, legislation was introduced in both the Pa. House and Senate. These bills would have established a regulatory framework for the practice of telemedicine and establish requirements for health insurance companies to pay valid claims. Unfortunately, neither made it to the finish line

The outcome from reaching these two policy goals means that there can be more prevention counseling done remotely and more avenues of treatment for an underlying cause of opioid abuse.

Editor’s Note: The Pennsylvania State Grange was founded in 1873 as Pennsylvania’s agricultural, rural life and small-town citizen advocate.