Medicaid Insurance Predicts Increased Postoperative Care Encounters Among Patients on Long-term Opioid Therapy

This study examined the association between insurance type and postoperative unplanned care encounters among patients on long-term opioid therapy before surgery.

Preoperative long-term opioid therapy is associated with unique risks and poorer outcomes following surgery. To date, the extent to which insurance coverage influences postoperative outcomes in this population remains unclear.

Among individuals receiving a supply of >120 total days or at least 10 opioid prescriptions in the year before surgery, we examined patients with Medicaid or private insurance who underwent abdominopelvic surgery from 2017 to 2021 across 70 hospitals in the state of Michigan. The primary outcome was unplanned care encounters, defined as an emergency department visit or unplanned readmission within 30 days of discharge from surgery. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the likelihood of acute care events with insurance type as the primary covariate of interest.

Among 1212 patients on long-term opioid therapy before surgery, 45.6% (n = 553) had Medicaid insurance. Overall, 1 in 8 (n=151) patients met the criteria for a postoperative unplanned care encounter within 30 days. The probability of an unplanned encounter was 4.5 percentage points higher among patients with Medicaid insurance compared with private insurance (95% CI: 0.5%, 8.4%).

Among patients on preoperative long-term opioid therapy, unplanned care encounters were higher among patients with Medicaid when compared with private insurance. While this is likely multifactorial, differences by insurance status may point to disparities in underlying social determinants of health and suggest the need for postoperative care pathways that address these gaps.