Association of Opioid Tapering with Pain-Related Emergency Department Visits, Hospitalizations, and Primary Care Visits: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Objective: Tapering of chronic opioids has increased, with subsequent reports of exacerbated pain among patients who tapered. We aimed to evaluate the association between opioid dose tapering and subsequent pain-related healthcare utilization (ED visits, hospitalizations and primary care visits).

Design, setting and subjects: We conducted a retrospective cohort study from 2015-2019 using data from the Optum Labs Data Warehouse that contains de-identified retrospective administrative claims data for commercial and Medicare Advantage enrollees in the US. Adults aged ≥18 years who were prescribed stable doses of opioids, ≥50 morphine milligram equivalents (MME)/day, during a 12-month baseline period.

Methods: Tapering was defined as ≥ 15% relative reduction in mean daily opioid dose during one of 6 overlapping 60-day periods. Tapered patient-periods were subclassified as tapered-and-continued (MME > 0) vs. tapered-and-discontinued (MME = 0). We modeled monthly counts of visits for pain diagnoses up to 12 months after cohort entry using negative binomial regression as a function of tapering, baseline utilization, and patient level-covariates.

Results: Among 47,033 patients, 13,793 patients tapered. Compared to no taper, any taper was associated with more ED visits for pain (adjusted incidence rate ratio [aIRR] 1.21, 95% CI: 1.11-1.30), tapered then continued status was associated with more ED visits (aIRR 1.23, CI: 1.14-1.32) and hospitalizations (aIRR 1.14, CI: 1.03-1.27) for pain, and tapered-and-discontinued was associated with fewer primary care visits for pain (aIRR 0.68, CI: 0.61-0.76).

Conclusions: These associations suggest that opioid tapering may lead to increased emergency and hospital utilization for acute pain and possibly a decreased perceived need for primary care for those whose opioids were discontinued.