Today’s issue of WorkCompRecap features Enlyte’s release of the third portion of its 2022 Pharmacy Solutions Drug Trends Report, which examines trends within the Opioid drug category.
Key findings included that opioids continue to represent a decreasing proportion of overall scripts and costs – opioid scripts dropped 1.3%, and costs were down 2.5% from 2021. The number of injured workers using opioids has continued to decline as well, decreasing by 2.7 percentage points since 2021, with the proportion of injured workers on opioids in 2022 at 23.8%. Trends in morphine equivalent dose (MED) were also favorable, with the majority (17) of the top 20 states ranked by opioid script volume seeing decreases in High MED metrics (avg daily MED of 90 mg or above) in 2022.