Injured workers have many items to deal with as they recover. That said issues with narcotics should not be one of them.
A new study by the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) found that the amount of narcotics used by an average injured worker in Louisiana and New York was striking.
The study, Interstate Variations in Use of Narcotics, 2nd Edition, examines interstate variations and trends in the use of narcotics and prescribing patterns of pain medications in the workers compensation system across 25 states.
“The dangers of narcotic misuse resulting in death and addiction constitute a top priority public health problem in the United States and are shared by the workers’ compensation community,” said Dr. Richard Victor, WCRI’s executive director. “This study will give public officials, employers, worker advocates, and other stakeholders the ability to see how the use and prescribing of narcotics in their state compares to others.”
New York and Louisiana Numbers Stand Out
According to the study, the average injured worker in New York and Louisiana received more than 3,600 milligrams of morphine equivalent narcotics per claim (double the number in the typical state). To illustrate, this amount is equivalent to an injured worker taking a 5-milligram Vicodin® tablet every four hours for four months continuously, or a 120-milligram morphine equivalent daily dose for an entire month.
Besides New York and Louisiana, the amount of narcotics per claim was also higher in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma (32–48 percent higher than the typical state). Michigan had the highest amount of narcotics per claim among the Midwest states included in this study. It is worth noting that Michigan was among the states with lower use of narcotics per claim compared with the typical state in 2008/2010.
The study found that narcotics are frequently used in the workers comp system. In 2010/2012, about 65 to 85 percent of injured workers with pain medications received narcotics for pain relief in most states. A slightly higher proportion of injured workers with pain medications in Arkansas (88 percent) and Louisiana (87 percent) received narcotics.
The study is based on approximately 264,000 workers comp claims and 1.5 million prescriptions associated with those claims from 25 states. The claims represent injuries arising from Oct. 1, 2007, to Sept. 30, 2010, with prescriptions filled up to March 31, 2012. The underlying data reflect an average of 24 months of experience.
The following states are included in this study: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Author Kori Shafer-Stack, Editor, Amaxx Risk Solutions, Inc. is an expert in post-injury response procedures and part of the Amaxx team helping companies reduce their workers compensation costs by 20% to 50%. www.reduceyourworkerscomp.com. Contact: kstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.
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