MINNEAPOLIS, January 30, 2008—The Minnesota Board of Medical Practice (BMP) has issued a work group report on appropriate prescribing of controlled substances for the management of pain, as mandated by the 2007 Legislature.

The mission of the work group was to discuss the appropriate prescribing of schedule II and III controlled substances and report back to the Legislature by December 15, 2007. The task was assigned in response to the state's adoption of the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act (NASPER) Act, signed into law in 2005, which asks states to electronically monitor the dispensing of controlled substances.

The MMA, AMA, and American Society Of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP) have all supported the NASPER legislation.

The report included five separate statements, addressing these topics:

• The need for a clinical methodology that best determines appropriate patient selection for the use of controlled substance medication for pain management. The BMP work group adopted in its entirety The Model Policy for the Use of Controlled Substances for the Treatment of Pain, adopted as policy by the House of Delegates of the Federation of State Medical Boards, Inc. in 2004.
• The belief that under-management or non-management of pain is as serious a departure from medical standards and as serious a violation of the Minnesota Medical Practice Act as is inappropriate prescribing of controlled substances.
• A proposition that the Legislature require Minnesota schools for the prescribing professions to form a joint task force to explore how students and residents can be taught and trained to manage pain.
• A recommendation that that the legislature monitor for five years the effects of recent legislation requiring Minnesota to initiate a controlled substance prescription data bank under the Federal NASPER requirements.
• Efforts made over the past two decades by the BMP to educate the Minnesota practice community in the appropriate use of controlled substances for the management of pain.

The work group reviewed models for clinical methodology for acceptable management of pain published by three major clinical organizations and the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.

Work group members included:

Alfred Anderson, D,C,. M.D., Chair
Medical Pain Management, LTD

Richard Auld, Ph.D.
Board of Medical Practice

Miles Belgrade, M.D.
Fairview Pain Management Clinic

James Langland, M.D.
Dakota Clinic

Rob Leach, J.D.
BMP

Richard D. Lentz, M.D.
Park Nicollet Clinic

Bill Lohman, M.D.
Dept of Labor & Industry

Burton Schwartz, M.D.
Minnesota Oncology Hematology, P.A. 

John Van Etta, M.D., FACP
St. Luke's Internal Medicine Associates  

Karolyn Stirewalt, MMA legal counsel, represented the Minnesota Medical Association at the work group's meetings.