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Published on: June 10, 2013
Gabapentinoid and Opioid Utilization and Cost Trends Among Injured Workers
Che Liu1, Robert A Lavin, Larry Yuspeh
1Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency Program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Dr Liu); Department of Neurology, University of Maryland School of Medicine (Dr Lavin); Assistant Vice President of Strategy, Enterprise Risk, and Research, Louisiana Workers' Compensation Corporation, Louisiana (Mr Yuspeh); Department of Medicine (Mr Yuspeh, Dr Leung, Dr Kalia, Dr Bernacki); Department of Population Health, Dell Medical School, the University of Texas at Austin (Dr Leung, Dr Tsourmas, Dr Bernacki); North America Medical Leader, The Procter and Gamble Company, Cincinnati, Ohio (Dr Kalia); Medical Operations, Policy Holder Services Division, Medical Director, Texas Mutual Insurance (Dr Williams), Austin, Texas; Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Medicine (Dr Tao), Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
Objective:
To characterize changes in opioid, gabapentin, and pregabalin utilization patterns and cost trends between 2008 and 2018 in a Louisiana workers' compensation claims population and explore the role of gabapentinoids as alternative analgesics during the opioid epidemic.
Method:
Filled prescriptions for gabapentinoids and opioids were studied for 11 years in a cohort of 18,737 claimants.
Results:
The proportion of claimants prescribed gabapentin increased 2-fold (8.9% to 18.9%) and average drug cost per claimant decreased 22% ($612 to $480). The proportion of claimants prescribed pregabalin decreased approximately 80% (11.7% to 2.5%) and average drug cost per claim increased 224% ($911 to $2952). Proportion of claimants prescribed opioids decreased 20% (80% to 64.2%) and average drug cost per claim decreased 46% ($691 to $371).
Conclusions:
Utilization increased substantially for gabapentin and decreased for pregabalin and opioids.
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