Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda
WorkCompCentral’s Mark Powell penned an excellent piece on just-released research on tapering long-term opioid patients. One finding demands our attention; researchers found a statistically significant increase in overdoses and mental health crises in the 12 months after tapering was concluded. On … Continue reading Opioids, tapering, and risks – what you need to know
Read More...27 payers were kind enough to participate in this year’s Annual Survey of Prescription Drug Management in Workers’ Compensation. I’m working thru the data now…here are a few highlights. (The Survey falls under CompPharma, a workers’ comp pharmacy consultancy; as … Continue reading Latest data on WC drug spend, opioids, generics and PBM ratings
Read More...Dr Steve Feinberg pointed me to two studies conducted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on chronic pain, both systematic reviews [reviews of published studies of a specific topic]. One focused on opioid treatments for chronic pain, the … Continue reading Chronic pain, opioids, and other drugs – the latest research
Read More...One of the top work comp events is three weeks away – WCRI’s annual research conference kicks off on March 23 and continues the following day. Registration is here. I connected with John Ruser PhD to get the scoop on … Continue reading COVID, Claims, Employment, Opioids, and Physical Therapy – WCRI’s got it all
Read More...After my posts last week it is clear there’s a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about the CDC’s opioid and chronic pain guidelines. At MCM we take the old-school approach to these things; we focus on the facts. So, here … Continue reading The CDC’s Opioids for Chronic Pain Guidelines; Myths and facts
Read More...Several commenters purporting to be chronic pain patients responded to my post about the AMA’s bemoaning CDC’s opioid guidelines. Their stories were tragic; heartfelt; full of pain, suffering, and grief. All decried the CDC’s guidelines as wildly misplaced, directly responsible … Continue reading The scammers fighting CDC’s opioid guidelines
Read More...There’s still lots of money in the peddling of opioids, and lots of misinformation out there about opioid control efforts going too far. Correlated? You tell me. The American Medical Association sent a letter to the CDC claiming “the nation … Continue reading The prescription opioid crisis is far from over
Read More...Two members of the Perdue family, the folks who made tens of billions of dollars addicting patients to dangerous drugs, testified before Congress yesterday. Both averred there was nothing they could have done to avoid/prevent the damage their company did. … Continue reading Opioid deaths up…Perdue family completely blameless
Read More...Three news items hit the desk, ranging from bad to awful. More than 73,000 of us died of drug overdoses in the 12 months ending February, 2020. That’s four thousand more deaths than the previous year. (note graph below is … Continue reading Opioids – Deaths up, Sacklers likely to escape justice
Read More...myMatrixx released it’s annual Drug Trend Report yesterday; there’s a lot of good news – and a few trends that bear close attention. The good stuff (lots more in the report itself) drug costs per patient decreased by 2.4% despite … Continue reading Work comp drug trends – costs and opioid use down, physician dispensers still a big problem
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