Confronting a crisis: An open letter to America's physicians on the opioid epidemic.

As a profession that places patient well-being as our highest priority, we must accept responsibility to re-examine prescribing practices. We must begin by preventing our patients from becoming addicted to opioids in the first place. We must work with federal and private health insurers to enable access to multi-disciplinary treatment programs for patients with pain and expand access for medication-assisted treatment for those with opioid use disorders. We must do these things with compassion and attention to the needs of our patients despite conflicting public policies that continue to assert unreasonable expectations for pain control.