The Economic Burden of Opioid Abuse: Updated Findings

BACKGROUND:

Opioid pain relievers can be highly effective in providing relief for patients suffering from pain. At the same time, prescription opioid abuse, dependence, overdose, and poisoning (hereinafter "abuse") have become a national public health concern. Opioid abuse is also costly: previous estimates of the annual excess costs of opioid abuse to payers range from approximately $10,000 to $20,000 per patient.

OBJECTIVES:

To (a) provide a comprehensive, current estimate of the economic burden of opioid abuse to commercial payers and (b) explore the drivers of these excess costs of abuse.

METHODS:

Administrative claims from beneficiaries covered by large self-insured companies throughout the United States were used to identify patients diagnosed with opioid abuse, dependence, and overdose/poisoning ("abuse") between 2012 and 2015. Sample selection criteria identified patients most likely to be misusing opioids. Abusers and nonabuser controls were matched using propensity scores. Excess health care costs were assessed over the 18-month study period. Drivers of excess costs were then evaluated by place of service and medical condition (identified as 3-digit ICD-9-CM groupings).

RESULTS:

9,342 matched abuser/nonabuser pairs were analyzed. Relative to nonabusers, abusers had significantly higher annual health care resource utilization, leading to $14,810 in per-patient incremental annual health care costs. Excess costs began accumulating 5 months before the formal, incident diagnosis of abuse, driven by alcohol and nonopioid substance abuse. Major drivers of excess costs of abuseincluded opioid and other substance abuse disorders, mental health conditions, and painful conditions. Many patients had diagnoses for other substance abuse that predated their opioid abuse diagnoses.

CONCLUSIONS:

Opioid abuse imposes a substantial economic burden on payers and often occurs in the context of other substance abuse. Poly-substance abuse often precedes the diagnosis of opioid abuse.