Hospice news

Restricting access to long-acting pain medications may actually increase rather than decrease overall Medicaid costs, according to a study conducted for the US National Foundation of Women Legislators. Presenting the findings in Florida, State Representative Gayle Harrell warned, “it doesn’t make sense for us to limit access to prescription drugs that can help a patient avoid more costly medical procedures.” Data from a random sample of 680,000 Medicaid prescription drug recipients were analyzed to determine the occurrence and medical status of those patients treated with opioids. Results indicated that patients using long-acting opioid medications had already failed on at least two shortacting pain drugs and suffered from almost twice the number of ailments as patients taking short-acting opioids. The data indicates that restricting access to long-acting opioids can result in increased use of other, more expensive medical services, such as hospitalization and surgery. Interestingly, the study also found that Hispanic patients made up 49 percent of the prescribed drug population used in the sample but represented only 6 percent of those receiving longacting opioid medications. Although these patients were not compared for severity of illness, results do indicate a possible bias against prescribing longacting opioid medication to patients of Hispanic descent. Missouri State Representative Linda Bartelsmeyer called on the Florida Legislature to study just what the impact of limiting access to long-acting opioid medication would be on both patients and the state’s Medicaid budget. “We believe these issues could best be addressed by the creation of a Florida Pain Commission Advisory Board, comprised of patients, physicians, and pain management advocates,” she said. (Source: Last Acts in the News, March 31, 2003.)