By James Choo, MD
On March 16, 2016, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its National Pain Strategy. The plan is the first of its kind, created by the federal government to tackle the epidemic of chronic pain in the United States.
A landmark Institute of Medicine study in 2011 outlined the fiscal burden of chronic pain, which was estimated to be around $600 billion annually in lost wages and medical expenditures. The HHS