Building a Wall Between Pain Patients and Their Doctors SHARE The Associated Press reported recently about doctors being threatened by patients who are in desperate pain and have been abruptly cut off from their opioid pain medications. This is not common, but not surprising, given the tendency of policymakers and many health care practitioners to misinterpret and misapply the 2016 CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. The misinterpretation of the guidelines and the lack of policymakers’ appreciation for nuance causes many doctors to be intimidated by law enforcement overseeing Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs, leading them to undertreat or even abruptly stop medicating patients with chronic, severe pain. Compassionate physicians who want to help their patients read horror stories in the press about doctors like them being arrested or having their licenses suspended. As a result, many doctors are giving up treating pain altogether, refusing to see pain patients.