More than two million healthcare providers throughout the country will receive letters from U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, later this month. It will include information for doctors about how to best help patients and families dealing with opioid addictions and how to prevent those at risk from becoming addicted in the first place.

The letter is part of Turn the Tide, an effort by Murthy and other parts of the Obama administration to empower physicians and other healthcare providers to play a frontline defense role against the U.S.’ current opioid abuse epidemic.

Efforts to increase government’s part in treatment have gotten bigger as the problem has become more widespread.

“Addiction does not discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity, religion or region,” said Murthy.

The campaign’s website launched Aug. 8. It includes addiction information for doctors and patients about opioid addiction risks, opioid prescription, storage and disposal recommendations and lists of non-opioid pain management options.

The website also asks physicians to sign a pledge promising to fight against opioid addiction in the U.S. The pledge asks prescribers to “educate ourselves to treat pain safely and effectively,” “screen our patients for opioid use disorder and provide or connect them with evidence-based treatment” and to “talk about and treat addiction as a chronic illness, not a moral failing.” About 1,400 people had signed the pledge by the afternoon of Aug. 10.

Murthy explained his plans for Turn the Tide during a visit to the Haymarket Center in Chicago with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin Aug. 10. The Haymarket Center, founded in 1975, is an addiction treatment center in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood that offers inpatient and outpatient recovery programs for more than 18,000 people per year. Durbin and Murthy toured the center and spoke with people in opioid abuse recovery.

During the event, Murthy said one way the letter he plans to send out will be useful to clinicians is the inclusion of a pocket card version of the CDC’s updated prescribing guidelines.

The guidelines encourage doctors to consider non-opioid pain management strategies before prescribing opioids. And if they do end up prescribing them, to “start low and go slow.” That means doctors should prescribe in shorter increments, starting at the lowest dose possible. Then, they should follow up with patients regularly about their opioid use in addition to their pain and provide support for discontinuing opioid use.

The CDC also recommends physicians discuss the risks of opioid use with their patients before prescribing them, and they have a plan in place to help them seek treatment if opioid addiction or abuse develops.  

Previously, Murthy said, “urging [doctors to treat pain] was not accompanied by training and by support.”

According to one non-profit study, claims for opioid dependence treatment increased by 3,000 percent between 2007 and 2014. Durbin said 80 percent of heroin users started with opiates. He pointed out U.S. physicians are prescribing 14 billion opioid pills a year—enough for every American adult to have a one-month prescription.

He said he didn’t want to diminish the need for help with pain, but he wants the U.S. to stop “over-producing” opioid pills.

“I learned first-hand when I had my meniscus repaired in a hospital in Springfield, Illinois, a few years back. They gave me a bottle of pain killers to take home. It still sits in the closet of my bathroom, untouched,” Durbin recalled. “I ended up having these leftover pills, sitting there. That’s what’s happening too many times across America.”

He called on the federal government to be a part of the solution, since he said it helped start the problem with inadequate guidelines and approving increased pill production.

That included an appeal to his congressional colleagues to pass a bill allotting the $1 billion for assistance President Obama requested in his 2017 budget. Congress so far has been unable to agree on an anti-opioid spending plan.  

The Haymarket Center currently has approval for 16 inpatient Medicaid spots. Durbin said increased federal funding could help expand the patient load at that facility and elsewhere. Currently, only one in eight addiction sufferers are in treatment, according to Durbin.

One former Haymarket Center patient in recovery, who introduced himself as Jeremy, also called on Congress to supply more money so others like him can get help.

“This needs dire attention,” he said.

Jeremy said he had been living “a complete wreckage of a life” as a heroin addict and lost his sister to the epidemic. The Haymarket Center and the treatment it offered became a “beacon of hope.”

When other’s need similar help, Murthy urged doctors to frame addiction as a “chronic illness of the brain” and not a “character flaw.”

His office is set to release a report on the medical aspects of substance abuse later this year, the first of its kind from HHS.

He called addressing the epidemic a “priority” during his time in government.

"[But] I care about this issue first and foremost as a doctor,” Murthy said.