US Medicare And Opioids: Inspector General Sees Improvement

18 Jul 2019

• By Grace Moser and Cole Werble

HHS is slowly changing its rhetoric on the use of prescription opioids – edging away from crisis to finding positive trends. A new OIG report on opioid use in Medicare Part D emphasizes sustained positive trends in naloxone rescue and medication assisted treatment alternatives to opioid use disorder.

Cloudscape — Medicare Part D data might be showing some rays of hope in the opioid epidemic.

The headline story on opioid use by beneficiaries in the US Medicare Part D program is shifting for the first time in five years from an emphasis on abuse and over-prescribing to positive trends towards a sustained decrease in overall opioid use accompanied by a continued upswing in the medication-assisted treatment drugs.

In a now-annual analysis of the trends for opioids in Part D, the Department of Health & Human Services’ Office...