Opioid use by injured workers falls again

The number of injured workers served by the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation dependent on opioids has fallen six straight years.

As of June 30, there were 3,315 injured workers who met or exceeded the threshold of being clinically dependent on opioids, a 19 percent drop from the prior year and a 59 percent decrease since 2011 when the bureau began its push to reduce opioid use.

Bureau drug costs fell to $86 million in 2017, $47 million less than what was spent in 2011. That includes $24 million less on opioids.

Working with addiction experts, the bureau in 2011 defined a person as clinically dependent when he or she took the equivalent of at least 60 milligrams a day of morphine for 60 or more days. The bureau identified more than 8,000 injured workers who met that threshold at the end of 2011, and that prompted several initiatives to reduce those numbers and improve the bureau’s pharmacy operations.

Ensuing changes included the creation of a pharmacy and therapeutics committee, starting a panel of physicians and pharmacists that creates and reviews medication policy, the development of the bureau’s first list of approved drugs that it will cover and the 2016 opioid rule that holds prescribers accountable if they don’t follow best practices.

Meanwhile, the bureau on Friday approved a plan proposed last month to cut workers’ compensation rates by an average of 12 percent for private employers.

The reduction goes into effect July 1 and will save employers $163.5 million over this year.

It is the latest in what has been several years of rate cuts and rebates made to private and public employers in recent years.

The bureau has attributed the drop in rates, already at a 40-year low, to fewer claims, safer workplaces and slow growth in medical inflation.