Opioid abuse in the workers' compensation arena is greatly influenced by physician discretion, says the Workers' Compensation Research Institute (WCRI), a factor that played an important role in the Massachusetts W.C. system's fall and rise from painkiller dependence.
The WCRI recently published its findings in a report, “Longer-Term Use of Opioids.”
“Massachusetts is a good case study, because when the WCRI looked at 2007-2010 workers' comp. data in a 2011 study, the state was a high user of opioids,” says Dean Hashimoto, MD, chief of occupational and environmental medicine at Partners HealthCare Systems and member of the Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents (DIA) Health Care Services Board. “This is surprising because Massachusetts has experienced the lowest medical costs in the country, and was an early adopter of a drug prescription monitoring program in 1991.”
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