Pennsylvania lawmakers and Governor Tom Wolf have agreed to
hold a joint session of the General Assembly this fall to address the state’s
growing opioid crisis. Last year in Pennsylvania, there were over 3,500
overdose deaths, which is a 30-percent increase over the prior year. NFIB wants to make sure the issue of
excessive opioid use in the workers’ compensation system is also addressed during the special session. Workers are made vulnerable by over-prescribing, and that has resulted in
exorbitantly higher worker’s compensation insurance costs for small businesses.
A recent study by the Workers’ Compensation Research
Institute ranks Pennsylvania in the top three states for the amount of opioids
prescribed in workers’ compensation claims. Only Louisiana and New York were
ahead of Pennsylvania. To better understand the
extent of this opioid prescribing, the study found that in the top two
states, the average patient received the equivalent of a 5 milligram Vicodin
pill every four hours for nearly four months continuously. Pennsylvania was not
far behind, with prescribing rates 78-percent higher than the median state.
Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R- Lehigh) has introduced House Bill
1800, which would require evidence-based treatment guidelines to reign in out
of control medical costs across the workers’ compensation system, including
prescription drugs. Many other states
have implemented such guidelines and experienced a significant reduction in workers’
compensation costs. In preparation for the
special session, Mackenzie is working on a similar bill that would focus more
narrowly on prescription drugs by adopting a drug formulary in Pennsylvania’s
workers’ compensation system. Health
insurers have used drug formularies for some time and several states have
adopted state-regulated drug formularies as a way to reduce drug costs and curb
inappropriate treatments that harm the injured worker’s ability to return to
work.
NFIB hopes that the added attention to the opioid addiction
crisis will bring about action on this issue that is hurting both workers and
small employers.
