How can brokers help clients address the opioid epidemic?

Employee productivity has also been greatly impacted by opioid abuse.

The magnitude of the opioid problem is unfathomable, and touches countless lives. From 1999 to 2010, the amount of prescription opioids sold to hospitals, pharmacies and doctors’ offices in the U.S. almost quadrupled.^1,2,3 Yet, during that time, there had not been a reduction in the amount of pain that Americans reported.^4,5 Moreover, during that time, prescription opioid overdose deaths increased at a similar rate.

Employee productivity has also been greatly impacted by opioid abuse. These highly addictive and often over-prescribed medications have had a profound impact on families and businesses. Reports show that individuals with addiction are far more likely to be sick or absent, or to use workers’ compensation benefits. According to one study, prescription opioid abuse cost employers more than $25 billion in 2007.⁶ Moreover, in a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the “likelihood of chronic opioid use increased with each additional day of medication supplied starting with the third day,” and some of the “sharpest increases in chronic opioid use [were] observed after the fifth and thirty-first day on therapy.”⁷