The work being done in Morrison County to combat opioid addiction brought Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-MN, to Little Falls, Thursday.

Unlike five years ago when she and other lawmakers concerned about the opioid issue were a minority in Washington, D.C., Klobuchar said it is a big issue for lawmakers now.

At a roundtable meeting with CHI St. Gabriel’s staff, local officials and other stakeholders, Klobuchar was briefed on how the different pieces of the community are coming together to deal with opioid addiction.

Through a video connection from Atlanta, Ga., where they are speaking with others about this same topic at a national public health conference, Drs. Heather Bell and Kurt DeVine talked about how they’ve been dealing with patients and other medical professionals.

When they originally started the program in 2014, there was nothing like it to base the program on, DeVine said.

“We couldn’t find a thing,” DeVine said.

So, the program was built from the ground up, and the doctors learned no one-size-fits-all program would work, so they began dealing with each patient on an individual basis.

Klobuchar asked for clarification on how patients were prioritized for getting off opioids, such as if the doctors were working to get terminally ill patients off their medications, for example.

DeVine said that was not the case, but for about a third of the patients, when the doctors looked through their charts, there was nothing that stood out as necessitating opioid painkillers.

The doctors then tried to work with those patients to find other solutions for their pain.

Now, the doctors are training other rural doctors on their method.

Another stakeholder Klobuchar heard from was Coborn’s Pharmacy Manager Gary Sperl, who said pharmacies like his are working to ensure they are not refilling prescriptions early.

Sperl said he is concerned that as insurance companies push for patients to fill orders by mail, pharmacists like him won’t be able to help patients get help they need.

Morrison County Sheriff Shawn Larsen said his agency is now working with the doctors to allow inmates to take their Suboxone medication, which helps treat opioid addiction.

In addition, through a grant, the care team is working with the Sheriff’s Office to provide some opioid addicts with Suboxone when suffering from withdrawal in jail and have them continue treatment as part of probation, Bell said.

Klobuchar asked how the $8 per day Suboxone is paid for. She said it would be nice to see drug companies that provided the drugs people got addicted to in the first place cover some of that cost, which is paid for by medical assistance programs.

Klobuchar said the work done in the area is ahead of the curve and was impressed by the teamwork and effort the group has shown.

“They didn’t just issue platitudes and say, ‘Oh we want to do something.’ They actually started going through case files and figuring out who has legitimate pain issues or has terminal illness and needs these opioids and who is just addicted,” Klobuchar said.