Background –
An increase in opioid prescribing has led to an increase in opioid overdoses.1,2 No study has estimated the incremental costs subsequent to an opioid overdose event in prescription opioid users, or the prevalence and costs of overdose events in family members of prescription opioid users and in overdose victims with no identifiable source of prescription opioid. The latter group will be referred to as “others”.
Objectives –
The first objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of opioid overdoses in aforementioned groups. The second objective was to estimate the incremental costs and resource utilization associated with opioid overdoses in these groups.
Methods –
This study is a retrospective analysis using claims data from SelectHealth, a not-for-profit health insurance organization in Utah and southern Idaho. We estimated the prevalence of opioid overdoses in the sample population, as well as in each group, by year. For the cost estimation we collapsed family members and others into one category – “non-medical users”. To estimate costs we used an incremental cost approach whereby we used propensity scores to match cases (patients who suffered from an opioid overdose) to appropriate controls (patients who did not suffer from an opioid overdose) and estimated the direct medical costs incurred in each group in the year following an overdose. Generalized Linear Models were used to estimate incremental costs and resource utilization. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to measure the robustness of the estimates.
Results –
The prevalence of opioid overdoses increased by 84.8% in prescription opioid users (from 55.6 per 100,000 in 2011 to 102.8 per 100,000 in 2014), increased by 37.9% in family members of prescription opioid users (from 5.9 per 100,000 in 2011 to 8.2 per 100,000 in 2014) and increased by 179.9% in others (from 8.2 per 100,000 in 2011 to 23.1 per 100,000 in 2014).
The prevalence of opioid overdoses in acute users increased by 14.7% (from 43.8 per 100,000 in 2011 to 50.3 per 100,000 in 2014) as compared to 165.9% in chronic users (from 187.0 per 100,000 in 2011 to 497.3 per 100,000 in 2014).
The incremental direct medical costs per patient per year were estimated to be $65,277 (p-value<0.05) in prescription opioid users who suffered from an overdose and $41,102 (p-value<0.05) in non-medical users who suffered from an overdose. Overdose-specific costs were estimated to be $12,111 for prescription opioid users and $11,070 in non-users.
Conclusions –
Our study found that the prevalence of opioid overdoses increased steadily from 2011 to 2014 in the sample population. The prevalence of overdoses was much higher in chronic opioid users as compared to acute users. Differences between overdose-specific costs and total incremental costs may suggest that overdoses are associated with substantial costs in addition to costs for the initial treatment of the overdose. While the cost to payers due to overdoses in prescription opioid users is substantial, payers also incur costs from diversion of opioids.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:vcu.edu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-5669 |
| Date | 01 January 2016 |
| Creators | Electricwala, Batul |
| Publisher | VCU Scholars Compass |
| Source Sets | Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | © The Author |
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