Specialty Drugs to Watch in Workers’ Compensation: Infusibles and Injectables

White Paper Summary

Infusibles are drugs that usually involve the administration of medication directly into the patient’s veins through a needle or catheter. Many of these medications are “biologics” – drugs derived from living organisms – which have complex storage/handling and administration requirements.

Typically, infusion therapy is reserved for conditions or diseases for which oral medication therapy may not be available or that do not respond to oral medications. In workers’ comp, infusibles may be prescribed to injured workers with occupational illnesses including pulmonary fibrosis, certain cancers, or exposure to blood-borne viruses including HIV or hepatitis C.

Sometimes infusibles are lumped in with injectables, specialty drugs that are administered into the muscle or beneath the skin. In workers’ compensation, injectables can also be costly and are increasingly being used to treat injuries to joints such as knees, elbows, and hips as well as back injuries.

For more content like this from Healthesystems visit their RxInformer clinical journal website.