Prescription opioid drugs are a major driver behind costs related to the treatment of opioid drug overdoses, a recent study reveals.
An analysis published last week in JAMA found that 67.8% of opioid-related drug overdoses treated in emergency departments in 2010 involved painkillers prescribed by a physician, totaling more than 91,000 visits in that year.
The patient was hospitalized in about 55% of prescription painkiller overdose cases, according to the study. The average length of stay was nearly four days. The average cost for hospitalization per patient was more than $29,000. The combined cost for both ED visits and inpatient stays for prescription opioid overdoses totaled more than $1 billion in 2010, according to the study.
“Opioid overdose exacts a significant financial and healthcare utilization burden on the U.S. healthcare system,” study authors wrote. “Most patients in our sample overdosed on prescription opioids, suggesting that further efforts to stem the prescription opioid overdose epidemic are urgently needed.”
Prescription opioid overdoses had a relatively low mortality rate, making up only 1.1% of emergency department visits that resulted in death compared with 2.2% of visits involving overdoses that were the result of the use of multiple opioids.
The majority of prescription overdoses occurred in urban areas, at 84%, with more than 40% happening in the South and women accounting for 53% of cases.
In 2012, healthcare providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Overdoses of prescription painkillers have more than tripled in the past 20 years, according to the CDC, which has led to a stark increase in the number of related deaths over the past decade from 4,000 in 1999 to more than 16,000 by 2010.
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