Illinois has made history--Check it out!
For years, 10 Minutes A Day has worked hard to advance policies that protect the chronic pain community. We were supported & helped initiate a bill to protect pain patients, which became a law this year. Illinois HB 5373, which was historical in many respects. HB 5373 eliminated the usage of "Morphine Milligram Equivalent" (MME) guidelines & took critical steps to prevent law enforcement from using our Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) for fishing expeditions or punitive reasons. Instead, our PMP has been changed, ending our reliance on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Guidelines for Opioid Prescribing, and instead, adopting the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) 2024 updated guidance and clinical discretion. HB 5373 allows healthcare professionals to treat chronic pain in a patient-centered, evidence-based, compassionate way that makes a difference for patients. We're grateful to Illinois ADVANCE, a group of pharmacists affiliated with the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC), for recently spotlighting the bill we worked so hard on! Here's a link to their post. Our work on these issues isn't finished, and we have several exciting upcoming projects, but HB 5373 was a big deal--it passed both legislative chambers unanimously & on a bipartisan basis, reinforcing the fact that pain doesn't discriminate based on what someone believes--we all experience it at some point in our lives. Thank you to everyone who helped make HB 5373 a law & who continues to fight for the chronic pain community!
