Newsletters
Risk Central
Digital Edition
Risk Insider: Jason Beans
Workers’ Comp – Feeding the Heroin Dragon
Jason Beans is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rising Medical Solutions, a medical cost management firm. He has over 20 years of industry experience. He can be reached at [email protected].
CNN recently ran an article on a grandmother addicted to heroin. In what almost seems cliché these days, her heroin use started as a prescription drug addiction. This could have just as easily been the result of treatment for a workers’ comp injury.
Our nation spends billions fighting the “war on drugs,” militarizing the police, incarcerating people, and devastating lives, while the highly-regulated medical and pharmacy industry are free to dispense essentially the same substances. Consider that most inmates are jailed for non-violent crimes, and most of those are drug-related. The cost to society in money and disruption is astounding.
Prescription drugs account for more overdose deaths than all street drugs combined. Moreover, our healthcare system has basically become a primary feeder to the illegal drug market.
This is a health issue and a moral issue – not a criminal issue – and we need to fix our health system.
When you start doing some back-of-the-napkin math, you realize that the workers’ compensation system’s potential contribution to the heroin problem in America is staggering.
As workers’ compensation professionals, it’s critical we understand our impact on society. Every time we help prevent an addiction, we impact not just one person’s life, not just an insurance carrier or an employer and their employees, but the children and families of these potential addicts. We also impact the public’s price tag in emergency room visits, government treatment programs, drug-related accidents, etc.
Consider this. A WCRI study found that about 55–85 percent of injured workers were prescribed opioids. Of the roughly 3.6 million new injuries that occur each year, this equates to 1,980,000 to 3,060,000 potential addicts the workers’ comp industry is creating annually.
Now factor in that 75 percent of heroin users indicate that their “first opiate of abuse” was through prescription drugs, according to a recent JAMA study. Taking it one step past the patients themselves, you uncover that the family medicine cabinet has become a breeding ground for the heroin addictions of our youth.
When you start doing some back-of-the-napkin math, you realize that the workers’ compensation system’s potential contribution to the heroin problem in America is staggering. Bottom line, we need to take ownership – our industry is creating addicts who are creating a massive recurring demand for heroin and other illegal substances.
While I applaud the Drug Enforcement Administration’s recent reclassification of hydrocodone as a Schedule II medication with heightened restrictions, one has to wonder – will this simply drive users to illicit drugs, like heroin, faster? Some addiction experts think so.
Anyone in our industry that’s been involved with addiction weaning programs knows how hard it is to get patients off “the dragon.” The reality is that providers continue to prescribe opioids way too often and for way too long, rather than as a short-term or last resort option. This is a battle that needs to be waged from the front lines.
The key is to make sure we have the systems and processes in place to prevent addiction in the first place. We in the workers’ compensation industry are uniquely positioned to fight this battle and change people’s lives for the better.
Read more of Jason Beans’ Risk Insider articles
