Over the years, we’ve heard many stories from pain warriors who wished their health care providers knew more about chronic pain and ways to manage it. This year, New York lawmakers are taking significant steps to benefit the chronic pain community and better support health care professionals either in training or practicing medicine.

Two bills pain warriors can get excited about

Assembly bill 608 and Assembly bill 9067 (S. 7132) focus on enhancing the state’s current provider education requirements, but in different ways.

1. 608 calls for a first of its kind chronic pain management education and training council, responsible for developing new public policies to advance the teaching of new treatments, management regimens, or best practices in chronic pain care-certified medical schools and residency programs. We’re especially pleased that this expert panel would include patient advocates – if enacted, you could request to sit on the council! Because curriculum building takes time, the council would have two years from the bill’s passage to develop its educational plan.
2. 9067, on the other hand, would immediately require registered nurses, psychologists, mental health professionals and others to complete at least two hours of coursework or training to prevent or address patient substance use disorder; course work or training would also include a portion on techniques for managing pain.While it’s vital to better address substance use disorder, U.S. Pain believes this bill should be strengthened by requiring providers to complete at least two hours of course work solely in the area of chronic pain management.

Support pain management education

The time is now for New York lawmakers to ensure clinicians are successful in treating the patients they serve by improving the educational requirements for health care providers. We’ve created two separate online campaigns that ask targeted committee members to schedule hearings on A. 608 and A. 9067 / S. 7132. Please take a moment to participate in each engagement.

Remember, whether this is your first time following a state policy issue with us or you’re a long-time volunteer, you’ll have our support every step of the way – we want to see you succeed!

Thank you for taking action on behalf of fellow pain warriors who deserve better pain management through provider education reform.