Author Chad Kollas describes the work and findings from his article in JPSM “Effectiveness of Long Term Opioid Therapy for Chronic Pain in an Outpatient Palliative Medicine Clinic”. Kollas CD, Ruiz K, Laughlin A. Effectiveness of Long-Term Opioid Therapy for Chronic Pain in an Outpatient Palliative Medicine Clinic. J Palliat Med. 2024;27(1):31-38. doi:10.1089/jpm.2023.0251

January 2024

Question: “How did the baseline mean MME/day in the cohort in 2018 compare to the baseline mean MME/day in the cohort in 2022?”

Answer: During the MAPPIT session, I reported the mean MME/day from the whole study group (N = 359) from 2018 for a comparison, but it was an “apples to oranges” comparison. The Florida PDMP did not standardize its calculation of MME for several months after its introduction, so there was no consistency to the calculation method in 2018. We calculated the mean MME/day from the PDMP and our own calculation MME/day for that QI project. By 2022, the Florida PDMP had standardized its MME/day calculation, so that we exclusively used the MME/day provided for the 2022 assessment of the qualifying cohort. Because of those methodological differences, I am unable to offer a consistent comparison of mean MME/day from 2018 to 2022 (which is why we reported just MME/day for the 2022 group; we sought to make a point about policies regarding MME/day limitations in the 2022 article.