The Heroin Epidemic, in 9 Graphs
The situation has raised concern among doctors about prescribing patterns – mainly that physicians are too widely distributing the medications. In 2012, health providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers, nearly enough for everyone in America.
[READ Doctors: Painkillers Overprescribed, But Not by Me]
The researchers behind the study pulled insurance claims data from the Truven Health MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters database. Using that data, they looked at patients with an opioid-related hospital admission, then followed their prescription claims to see what prescriptions the patient filled in the 30 days after release from care.
Of those patients, 22 percent filled an opioid prescription in the month after they left the hospital. In fact, more patients filled a prescription for opioids than filled medications that have been shown to help them stop abusing painkillers.