Direct costs of opioid abuse in an insured population in the United States The objective of this study was to describe the demographics of opioid abusers, compare the prevalence rates of selected comorbidities and the medical and drug usage patterns of opioid abusers with nonabusers (1998 to 2002), and calculate the healthcare costs from the private payer's perspective. A database of medical and pharmacy claims of 16 health plans with approximately 2 million enrollees was used to identify patients with claims associated with ICD-9-CM codes for opioid abuse. Opioid abusers, compared with nonabusers, had significantly higher prevalence rates for a number of specific comorbidities. Opioid abusers also had higher medical and prescription drug utilization levels. Prevalence rates for inpatient visits for opioid abusers were more than 12 times higher than nonabusers. Healthcare and drug costs for opioid abusers were also higher than for nonabusers. The researchers conclude that the high costs of opioid abuse were driven primarily by high prevalence rates of costly comorbidites and high utilization rates of medical services and prescription drugs. White AG, Birnbaum HG, Mareva MN, Daher M, Vallow S, Schein J, Katz N. Adapted from J Manag Care Pharm. 2005 Jul-Aug;11(6):469-79. Read more: PMID 15998164 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15998164&query_hl=70 Credit: PubMed, developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). BACK

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