Opioid Crisis: Scrap Pain as 5th Vital Sign?

Advocates are urging the Joint Commission and CMS to scrap policies that they say can lead to opioid overprescribing. In separate letters to both groups, signees asked the Joint Commission to re-examine its Pain Management Standards—which once helped push the idea of pain as the "fifth vital sign"—and asked CMS to strike patient satisfaction questions about pain from its reimbursement procedures.