The Workers’ Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) released a study on the impact that opioid prescriptions have on the duration of temporary disability benefits for workers with lower back injuries. The researchers found that opioid prescriptions greatly increase the duration of temporary disability taken by workers with these kinds of injuries.
The study used data from 28 states and looked at lower back injuries taking place between 2008 and 2013 where workers took more than seven days of lost work time. They looked at whether workers received an opioid prescription, if they received multiple opioid prescriptions, and if they had long-term opioid prescriptions (long-term meaning patients had prescriptions within the first three months after an injury and then at least three prescriptions filled between seven and twelve months after their injury). Then they looked at the effect of various prescriptions on temporary disability length.
They found that long-term opioid prescriptions meant workers had temporary disability durations three times longer than claims without opioid prescriptions. Claims that had opioid prescriptions for a short amount of time, without long-term opioid prescriptions, did not have such an impact on temporary disability length. The study also found that workers who live in “high-prescription” areas, where workers are more likely to receive opioid prescriptions than in other areas, had a higher likelihood of receiving long-term opioid prescriptions as well.
Though guidelines typically advise against using opioids to treat lower-back injuries that don’t require surgery, it seems that it’s still fairly common for such patients to receive opioid prescriptions. WCRI’s president and CEO John Ruser says that based on the results of the study, there is an implication that policies to address inappropriate long-term opioid prescribing could lead to a faster return to work.
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