Do Injured Workers Receive Opioid Prescriptions Outside the Workers’ Compensation System?

Asfaw, Abay; Quay, Brian; Chang, Chia-Chia

doi:10.1097/jom.0000000000001961

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These researchers also found only 10% had MaxMED > 120 7 . One other consideration is that workers with injuries were five times as likely to receive opioid prescriptions from their general health insurance, which may not be accounted for in these results 28 . During this timeframe, the opioid prescription patterns of physicians treating OBWC patients were similar to the patterns of both US physicians as a whole and Ohio physicians treating Medicaid patients 29,30 …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Workers' compensation costs for healthcare caregivers: Home healthcare, long‐term care, and hospital nurses and nursing aides

Davis

Freeman

Ying

et al. 2021

American J Industrial Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Healthcare workers (nurses and nursing aides) often have different exposures and injury risk factors depending on their occupational subsector and location (hospital, long‐term care, or home health care). Methods: A total of 5234 compensation claims for nurses and nursing aides who suffered injuries to their lower back, knee, and/or shoulder over a 5‐year period were obtained from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation and analyzed. Injury causation data was also collected for each claim. The outcome variables included indemnity costs, medical costs, total costs, and the number of lost work days. The highest prescribed morphine equivalent dose for opioid medications was also calculated for each claim. Results: Home healthcare nurses and nursing aides had the highest average total costs per claim. Hospital nurses and nursing aides had the highest total claim costs, of $5 million/year. Shoulder injuries for home healthcare nursing aides (HHNAs) had the highest average total claim costs ($20,600/injury) for all occupation, setting, and body area combinations. Opioids were most frequently prescribed for home healthcare nurses (HHNs) and nursing aides (18.9% and 17.7% having been prescribed opioids, respectively). Overexertion was the most common cause for HHN and nursing aide claims. Conclusions: With the rapidly expanding workforce in the home healthcare sector, there is a potential health crisis from the continued expansion of home healthcare worker injuries and their associated costs. In addition, the potential for opioid drug usage places these workers at risk for future dependence, overdose, and prolonged disability. Future research is needed to investigate the specific and ideally reversible causes of injury in claims categorized as caused by overexertion.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Workers' compensation costs for healthcare caregivers: Home healthcare, long‐term care, and hospital nurses and nursing aides

Davis

Freeman

Ying

et al. 2021

American J Industrial Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This may have led to under-reporting of the association between work-related conditions and short-acting opioid prescriptions given previous literature suggesting that opioid prescriptions may be paid for by other methods, such as group health insurance. [81][82][83] Second, we attempted to control for injury in the adjusted model given the number of injuries that are seen within the WC system; however, the full extent of injuries in this population may not have been accounted for. 23,84 Future research would benefit from evaluating other common injuries, specifically including knee T A B L E 2 Unadjusted and adjusted models for association of independent variables with prescription of short-acting opioids.…”

Section: Short-acting Opioid Prescriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short‐acting opioid prescriptions and Workers' Compensation using the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey

Thompson,

Govindarajulu,

Doucette

et al. 2024

American J Industrial Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundShort‐acting opioids have been utilized for pain management with little known about their use in patients on Workers' Compensation (WC) insurance. Our goal was to investigate this association in the ambulatory care setting.MethodsUsing the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, visits from patients aged 18–64 during the years 2010 until 2018 were evaluated (excluding 2017 due to data availability). Demographic and co‐morbidity data from each visit was obtained along with the visit year. The first short‐acting opioid medication prescribed in the database was considered. Survey‐weighted frequencies were evaluated. Logistic regression estimated the crude and adjusted odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals for the use of short‐acting opioid prescription.ResultsThere were 155,947 included visits with 62.5% for female patients. Most patients were White with 11.7% identifying as Black, and 6% identifying as another race. Over 13% of the sample was of Hispanic descent. WC was the identified insurance type in 1.6% of the sample population. Of these patients, 25.6% were prescribed a short‐acting opioid, compared with 10.1% of those with another identified insurance. On multivariable regression, Black patients had increased odds of being prescribed a short‐acting opioid compared to white patients (OR: 1.22, 95% CI: 1.11–1.34). Those on WC had 1.7‐fold higher odds of being prescribed short‐acting opioids (95% CI: 1.46–2.06).ConclusionCertain patient characteristics, including having WC insurance, increased the odds of a short‐acting opioid prescription. Further work is needed to identify prescribing patterns in specific high‐risk occupational groups, as well as to elicit potential associated health outcomes.

show abstract

“…17 Therefore, it is possible that additional medicines including opioids were prescribed and used outside of the workers' compensation system, a problem reported in similar workers' compensation systems. 3 A particular limitation was that of opioids dispensed OTC. Weak opioids (ie, codeine) were available for OTC purchase in Australia during the study period.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns of opioid dispensing and associated wage replacement duration in workers with accepted claims for low back pain: a retrospective cohort study

Donato

Xia

Iles

et al. 2021

Pain

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Do Injured Workers Receive Opioid Prescriptions Outside the Workers’ Compensation System?

Cited by 4 publications

References 32 publications

Workers' compensation costs for healthcare caregivers: Home healthcare, long‐term care, and hospital nurses and nursing aides

Workers' compensation costs for healthcare caregivers: Home healthcare, long‐term care, and hospital nurses and nursing aides

Short‐acting opioid prescriptions and Workers' Compensation using the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey

Patterns of opioid dispensing and associated wage replacement duration in workers with accepted claims for low back pain: a retrospective cohort study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About