Workers Compensation Programs Strive to Lower Opioid Rx Rates

(Summer 2017) The liberal prescribing of opioid painkillers by some health care practitioners is a contributing factor to the country’s opioid epidemic. Attempting to curb this practice, state workers’ compensation groups are taking action to reduce the number of these drugs prescribed to employees hurt while on the clock. For example, New York State’s Workers Compensation Board now allows insurance companies to hold hearings to investigate if claimants should be taken off their opioid medication. Ohio’s BWC is also working to reduce prescription rates by implementing new measures that allow reimbursement for opioids to be declined if it is suspected that a physician is overprescribing.

To realize the scope of impact workers’ compensation rules can have on this situation, consider that 2.8 million private industry workers and 752,000 public sector employees sustained non-fatal injuries while on the job in 2015 often resulting in pain; a survey by CompPharma uncovered that over $1.5 billion in opioid prescriptions were covered by workers’ compensation that same year; Workers’ compensation opioid expenditures account for 13% of total opioid pharmacy costs in the U.S. (2015).

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