Even As Opioid Prescriptions Decline, Why Do Fatal Overdoses Rise?

The medical data firm IMS Health suggests that opioid drug prescriptions have reduced for the first time in a couple of two decades, probably because of more awareness of their dangers in the medical world. However, it has also led to a demand for alternative drugs, which in turn has ironically boosted its fatal overdoses.

"The urgency of the epidemic, its devastating consequences, demands interventions that in some instances may make it harder for some patients to get their medication," said Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "We need to set up a system to make sure they are covered. But we cannot continue the prescription practice of opioids the way we have been. We just can't."

The IMS Health data also shows  that while there has been a 12 percent reduction in opioid prescriptions since 2012, another medical data firm found an 18 percent decrease in the same duration.

Hence, research finds an 8.5 percent increase in prescription drug spending, mainly from drugs that act as alternatives to opioids.

"When I was a resident, treating patients' pain as a vital sign was assumed," said Branson Page, an emergency medicine doctor at Granville Medical Center. "Now, more of us are aware that even prescribing a small number of opioids to a patient who's never taken them before is rolling the dice on whether that patient will become addicted."

Thus, in 2014, more than 28,000 died from overdoses, while about 19,000 of these deaths are thought to be from opioids.

"What is most striking is that the number of unintentional overdoses are still climbing despite fewer pills being described," said Lynn Webster, former president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. "Obviously this is a reflection that the goal to reduce harm from reduced prescribing is not working. We have to wait to see if that trend continues."

The research will be presented by IMS Health at the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) 21st Annual International Meeting.