Trends in average days' supply of opioid medications in Medicaid and commercial insurance
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Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2017-08-19
Type of Work
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Citation of Original Publication
Tehrani, Ali Bonakdar et al.; Trends in average days' supply of opioid medications in Medicaid and commercial insurance; Addictive Behaviors, Volume 76, January 2018, Pages 218-222; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2017.08.005
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Public Domain Mark 1.0
This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Public Domain Mark 1.0
This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Subjects
Abstract
Objectives
To calculate trends in adult average days' supply for six commonly prescribed opioids: hydrocodone, hydromorphone, morphine, oxycodone, oxymorphone, and tapentadol to assess whether physicians changed prescribing practices at the time of the intensifying epidemic.
Methods
We used 2005–2015 Truven Health MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters data to measure trends in opioid average days' supply among commercially insured individuals and 2005–2014 MarketScan Multi-State Medicaid data to measure trends in opioid average days' supply among Medicaid beneficiaries.
Results
For Medicaid, we found an increase in days' supply for all drugs except morphine. The largest percentage increase was for oxycodone, which increased 4.5 days (37%). Opioid days' supply for individuals with commercial insurance exhibited similar but steeper trends. The largest increase was also for oxycodone, which increased 6 days (56%). Between 2013 and 2015, when the opioid epidemic had begun to be widely publicized, there was no decline in the median days supplied for any of the opioids.
Conclusions
Our results find that days' supply of opioids are increasing despite public health campaigns and media attention on the risks of opioid prescribing. More effective interventions to curb opioid prescribing are needed to reverse these trends.