A number of HR Policy member companies committed to fighting the opioid epidemic at a signing ceremony of sweeping legislation that expands access to treatment to Medicaid patients and promotes research to find new drugs for pain management.
"Together we are going to end the scourge of drug addiction in America," President Trump said at the ceremony. "We are going to end it or we are going to at least make an extremely big dent in this terrible, terrible problem."
Member companies that pledged to join the public-private partnership to battle the epidemic include:
- Cigna, which is partnering with the VA to help veterans manage pain and mental health conditions and improve access to opioid addiction treatment with the goal of lowering opioid-related overdoses in selected communities by 25 percent over the next three years;
- CVS Health, which has pledged to install 1,100 additional permanent medical disposal sites and spread information about opioid abuse prevention to 250,000 students and parents by the end of 2019;
- Johnson & Johnson, which will continue educating America’s nurses and physicians to fight substance abuse and its opioid addiction awareness campaign that has to date reached more than 2.5 million expectant parents via its BabyCenter; and
- Walmart, which will continue its effort to limit acute opioid prescriptions to a seven-day supply, use technology to block fake prescriptions, and require E-Prescriptions for all scheduled drugs by 2020.
