New Workers Comp Opioid Study That Turned Out “Not So”
Writing an article about what I thought was a new groundbreaking Workers Comp Opioid Study violated two of my rules:
- No more opioid study articles as the term turned into a buzzword where articles were overdone and repetitive
- No more non-workers comp related articles
Well here, I am writing a fresh new article on opioids that was not necessarily insurance or workers comp related. Often, to not overuse buzzwords, the article must be adapted to workers comp when searching for great articles outside the insurance world.
University of Michigan Study
The non-Workers Comp opioid study can be found at this link. The article is well worth five to seven minutes of your time to see what the study says about limiting opioids to five days post-surgery. The Wolverine study confirms what many of the study creators and pundits have said about opioids for a long time – that limiting their use rarely has negative effects.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan had instituted only five days of opioids post-surgery.
Why is the term “non” used in reference to the article? Many honest reports will usually say at the end of the study article mention many of the study limitations including groups that were excluded from the study. I usually go to the references the article used and then the limitations.
The author had this to say:
Jennifer Waljee, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., senior author of the study, notes that the MSQC database doesn’t include all types of procedures, such as knee replacements and spine surgery, which typically require larger postoperative opioid prescriptions because of their associated pain.
Orthopedic Surgeries Excluded
With orthopedic surgeries excluded, the workers comp opioid study cannot be derived from the study article. As we all know, a large portion of workers comp surgeriess are due to orthopedic injuries. Even the study authors themselves realized that the study had many limitations.
Bottom Line on the non-Worker Comp Opioid Study
The conclusions drawn were generally great news –
Worries that surgery patients would have a tougher recovery if their doctors had to abide by a five-day limit on opioid pain medication prescriptions didn’t play out as expected, a new study finds.
