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23rd Annual Pain Medicine Meeting 2024
November 21-23, 2024 | Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada
6150
ASSESSING OPIOID PRESCRIPTION PATTERNS IN PAIN MANAGEMENT PROVIDERS USING 2022 MEDICARE PART D OPIOID PRESCRIBING DATA
Poster Presenter
Authors
Affiliations
Part of Topic
Scientific Abstracts > Chronic Pain
ASSESSING OPIOID PRESCRIPTION PATTERNS IN PAIN MANAGEMENT PROVIDERS USING 2022 MEDICARE PART D OPIOID PRESCRIBING DATA
Nivetha Srinivasan MD1, Vasanth Selvam DO2, Aditi Master MD1, Alejandro Hallo-Carrasco MD1, Jean Daniel Eloy1
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School1, Good Samaritan University Hospital2
INTRODUCTION
•Despite the use of nonpharmacologic methods in pain management, opioids remain prevalent due to their effectiveness and low cost.
•Many states have implemented prescription monitoring programs and opioid prescribing guidelines, but variations in legislation still exist concerning prescribing practices.
•GOAL: To understand the evolving role of pain management providers in the opioid epidemic by investigating recent opioid prescription patterns.
METHODS
DATASET
•Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) public datasets, “Medicare Part D Prescribers - by Provider” & “Medicare Part D Prescribers - by Provider and Drug” for 2022.
•Data were filtered to include MD, DO, MBBS, or MBBCH physicians in “interventional pain management,” “pain management,” and “pain medicine,” excluding CRNAs, NPs, and PAs.
STATISTICS
•Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests compared outcomes such as total opioid claims (including refills), prescriber rates, days of prescription per claim, and claims per beneficiary across different regions, RUCA codes, and genders (α = 0.05).
•Analysis was restricted to prescribers with >10 total claims, as CMS data does not report entries with fewer than 11 opioid claims.
RESULTS
OVERALL
•In 2022, pain physicians wrote 4,746,372 short-term opioid prescriptions totaling $316,052,876 and 778,219 long-term opioid prescriptions totaling $185,520,013 for Medicare Part D beneficiaries.
•Among 3,900 pain physicians, 5.15% prescribed no opioids, 17.69% prescribed 11-100, 26.59% prescribed 101-500, 16.56% prescribed 501-1000, 29.28% prescribed 1000-5000, and 4.72% prescribed over 5000.
GENDER
•Men had significantly higher total opioid claims and prescriber rates than women (p < 0.001)
REGION
•The South showed significantly higher total claims, prescriber rates, claims per beneficiary, and days per claim (p < 0.001).
•The South had higher total claims, days per claim, and claims per beneficiary for morphine, hydrocodone-acetaminophen, oxycodone-acetaminophen, oxycodone, hydromorphone, & tramadol (p < 0.001).
•The states with the highest proportion of physicians prescribing 1000+ opioids were Alabama (70.21%), Kentucky (67.14%), Louisiana (62.35%), Georgia (61.07%), & Arkansas (59.46%)
RUCA CODES
•No significant differences were found between metropolitan, micropolitan, and rural areas.
DISCUSSION
•Overall, male pain management physicians prescribed more opioids than females, and the South had disparately higher opioid prescribing practices than other regions of the USA.
•Trends may be attributed to varying emphasis on alternative pain management methods or socioeconomic factors influencing pain management therapies.
•Results show similar patterns to 2019 Medicare Part D data
•Understanding trends can provide insights that can help reduce the role of pain physicians in the opioid epidemic and inform public health policies to lower opioid-related mortality and morbidity.