The Law of Unintended Consequences Strikes Again

Late last week UPI news ran a  report by E.J. Mundell with the headline, “Government efforts to curb opioid prescriptions might have backfired.” It cites two separate studies published online in JAMA Surgery on August 22 that examined two different restrictive opioid policies that fell victim to the Law of Unintended Consequences.The first  study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, evaluated the impact of the Drug Enforcement Administration ’s 2014 rescheduling of hydrocodone (Vicodin) from Schedule III to Schedule II. Prescriptions for Schedule III narcotics may be phoned or faxed in by providers, but Schedule II narcotics require the patient to see the prescriber in person in order to obtain a prescription. The DEA’s goal was to reduce the number of Vicodin pills, popular with non-medical users, available for diversion to the black market.The study looked at 21,955 post-surgical patients across 75 hospitals in Michigan between 2012 and 2015 and found that the number of hydrocodone pills prescribed after the 2014 schedule change  increased  by an average of seven 5mg tablets. The  total  Oral Morphine Equivalent of prescribed hydrocodone did not change significantly after the DEA made hydrocodone Schedule II. However, the  refill  rate decreased after the change. The study ’s abstract concluded, “Changing hydrocodone from schedule III to schedule II was associated with an increase in the amount of opioids filled in the initial prescription fol...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs