Workers comp puts up battle vs. opioids
Meet a victim of the nation’s opioid addiction scourge: the American worker.
A number of U.S. states are taking steps through their workers compensation systems to stem the overprescribing of the powerful painkillers to workers injured on the job, while helping those who became hooked to avoid potentially deadly consequences.
“I was eating them up like they were candy,” said Jimmy Duran of Boston, who was prescribed opioids for years after fracturing vertebrae in a workplace accident in 2004.
“OxyContin, Percocet, morphine. ... It ruined my life,” he said. “It brought me to my knees.”
Duran said he eventually began dealing cocaine to bring in cash, and landed in jail for two years. Free of addiction now, he has become a licensed counselor at a treatment program.
According to a survey by CompPharma, an industry group that seeks to control workers compensation spending, more than $1.5 billion was spent on opioids by workers compensation insurers in 2015, with prescriptions for injured workers accounting for 13 percent of total opioid pharmacy costs in the U.S. that year.
Omar Hernandez, an administrative judge for the Massachusetts Division of Industrial Accidents, said, “These are people from all walks of life that didn’t ask to get injured. These are hardworking people who unfortunately suffered a work-related injury ... and are now hooked on these drugs.”
After he and other judges became alarmed by overdoses and deaths among people in the state’s workers compensation system, Hernandez spearheaded a voluntary program for people who had settled claims but were still being treated with opioids. It offers an expedited hearing process to resolve medication disputes with insurers and assigns care coordinators to help guide workers toward alternative treatments.