Is the opioid crisis a major plague involving millions of drug-addicted Americans? Not so, says new research presented by Castlight Health.
The benefits platform provider studied data from medical and pharmacy insurance claims and unearthed a trove of insightful information about the use and abuse of opioids. While Castlight characterized opioid abuse as a severe crisis, its data suggests that the actual number of people who account for most of the opioid abuse is a small one. Yet that small number has created a serious problem.
The big-picture finding: Just 4.5 percent of those who have received a prescription for an opioid drug are opioid abusers, and they account for nearly a third of total opioid prescriptions and 40 percent of spending on opioid scripts in the U.S.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
