The impact of state-mandated opioid prescribing restrictions on prescribing patterns surrounding reverse total shoulder arthroplasty

JSES International

Nikolas Echeverry, BS¹  Joel Grunhut, BA²  Conner Dalton, MS²  Alessia Lavin, MD²  Vani J. Sabesan, MD³  Kiran Chatha, MD⁴ 

[1] Corresponding author: Vani J. Sabesan, MD, Levitetz Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Cleveland Clinic Florida, Weston, FL, USA.;Charles E Schmidt School of Medicine, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA;Levitetz Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Cleveland Clinic Florida, Weston, FL, USA;University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA;

关键词: Law;    Legislation;    Opioid;    Prescriptions;    Opioid dependence;    Reverse total shoulder arthroplasty;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Background: Orthopedic surgeons are the third-highest prescribers of opioid medications, and the recent opioid crisis has placed more scrutiny on physicians and their prescribing habits. House Bill 21, a new law limiting the prescription of opioid medications, was signed in Florida on July 1, 2018 and similar laws have been passed in a number of other states as well. The purpose of this study was to understand the effect of new legal mandates on opioid prescribing patterns and dependence rates for patients undergoing reverse shoulder arthroplasty. Methods: A retrospective review of 143 patients who underwent primary reverse shoulder arthroplasty from 2017 to 2019 was performed. There were 87 patients in the pre-legislation group (group 1), compared to 56 in the post-legislation group (group 2). Demographics data and opioid prescriptions provided 90 days before and after surgery were obtained using the physician drug monitoring database. Descriptive statistics and Student's t-tests were used to examine differences. Results: Preoperatively, both groups received similar numbers of pills and total morphine equivalents (TMEs; group 1: 47.3 pills and 59.9 TMEs, group 2: 30.9 pills and 24.8 TMEs) (P = .292, P = .081). Group 1 had 88.5% of patients fill an opioid prescription postoperatively, compared to 50.9% of group 2 (P < .001). Postoperatively, initial opioid prescriptions were higher in average pills for group 1 (26 pills with an average of 375.6 TMEs) compared to group 2 (18 pills with an average of 199.6 TMEs) (P < .001, P = .122). For the entire postoperative course, patients in group 1 filled prescriptions for an average of 1740.7 TMEs and 84 pills, compared to 461.9 TMEs and 32 pills in group 2 (P = .035, P < .001). In the cohort, 17.8% of group 2 had multiple recorded opioid prescriptions, compared to 70.1% of group 1. There were also significant differences observed in postoperative dependence rates, with 23.0% in group 1 compared to 12.5% in group 2 (P = .043). Conclusions: State-mandated opioid prescribing restrictions have been successful in decreasing opioid prescribing and dependence rates for orthopedic shoulder patients. Further efforts are required to reduce preoperative prescriptions involving chronic shoulder pathology as current legislature has not had an impact on this. Legislative changes may be an effective way to help reduce abuse and opioid dependence in shoulder arthroplasty patients; however, further research is needed.

【 授权许可】

Unknown