In 2014, the American Medical Association convened more than 25 national, state, specialty and other health care associations in the Opioid Task Force to develop industry-wide recommendations for physicians to help end the nation’s opioid epidemic. In 2019, the AMA Pain Care Task Force highlighted efforts needed to help patients with pain. Both AMA task forces, the Opioid Task Force and Pain Care Task Force, have worked to provide actionable and measurable recommendations and principles for physicians, state and federal policymakers, and other stakeholders. In response to those recommendations, there has been measurable progress across multiple domains, policy changes led by medical society advocacy, and yet, the nation’s drug-related overdose and death epidemic has become worse.
As a result, in 2021, the AMA united the two task forces into a new effort, The Substance Use and Pain Care Task Force, to address the changing–and worsening–drug overdose epidemic, emphasizing tangible actions needed to increase access to evidence-based care for patients. The new task force now has more than 30 member associations.