US laws are tightened to curb opioid addiction epidemic but so far haven't eased the abuse or overdoses by disabled Medicare beneficiaries, a new study suggests. Ellen Meara, a Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice professor in Lebanon and lead researcher said that there is no concrete evidence yet that these laws are easing the misuse of prescription opioids.
On Wednesday, New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the toughest law limiting opioid drug prescriptions to seven days after the patient's first visit to a doctor. The signed legislation also requires insurers, without prior approval, to cover the first drug treatment of inpatients; this could be extended from 48 to 72 hours for emergency treatment; and add more than 2,000 addiction-treatment slots statewide, as per CBS New York. The new legislation could give a new light to other states to combat the heroin and opioid addiction crisis.
Gov. Cuomo's action was indeed in agreement to the proposal of Cigna CEO and President David Cordani during the America's Health Insurance Plans conference in Las Vegas last week. To cure the country's opioid addiction crisis, he suggested collaborating on aligned incentives between insurers, providers, and the pharmaceutical industry, Healthcare Finance reports. Cigna announced last month that they would actively participate in curbing the country's opioid addiction crisis by cutting the use of these drugs among its own customers by 25 percent.
This was also in-line with Mr. Cordani's advice to get shorter-term prescriptions and physicians can monitor a high-risk patient if he has gone to two other doctors to get a prescription filled via a database. Most states have good databases, but they're not all interconnected.
Disabled workers are likely to suffer from mental illness like depression because of high rates of poverty, and their constant medical and social needs lead them into opioid addiction. The widespread availability of powerful painkillers has caused opioid addiction, injury, and death.
Health Magazine stated that states enacted 81 laws to address the opioid abuse between 2006 and 2012. But researchers found that almost half of disabled Medicare beneficiaries were still using opioids in 2012.
Currently, there are more deaths related to opioid addiction than to car accidents. The opioid crisis has risen partly from an unintended consequence to manage pain. The use of narcotic painkillers has increased fourfold in the past 10 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Americans consume 80 percent of the world's supply of opioids, and 2.5 million Americans suffer from substance use disorders. A record in 2012 showed physicians prescribed 259 million opioid drug painkillers which are equivalent to nearly one bottle for every American adult.
