September 15, 2015
Chronic overprescription of opioid painkillers is fostering a culture of “sickness” in the American workplace. This was the conclusion recently drawn by a panel discussion, in which we participated, including experts with deep experience in workplace injury, health care, insurance, and pain management.
News accounts support this dire claim, including current stories chronicling the increase in heroin use among sufferers looking for a cheap alternative to prescription meds, or the recent Mayo Clinic study that found one in four people prescribed opioids progressed to longer-term prescriptions.
Historically, prescribing physicians have had few arrows in the pain management quiver and painkillers, short term, are certainly effective for many. But now practices find themselves challenged to come up with new ways to treat pain sufferers, particularly those with workplace injuries that the workers’ comp system refers to as catastrophic – overburdening the system and remaining largely unresolved.
Working in concert with employers, the insurance community, and other health care professionals, practices have the potential to resolve patient injuries more effectively and return patients to “normal” safely and more quickly. Stakeholders in the system must embrace these five essential changes that have the potential to curtail this continuing “sickness.”
1. Eliminate unproven therapies in favor of accurate diagnosis followed by evidence-based treatment.
Proper diagnosis is closely linked to proper treatment, and providers need to focus more heavily on accurate diagnosis to deliver appropriate care. Yet some 30 percent of patients are misdiagnosed: In the worst cases, what could have been an injury that might heal within weeks with proper treatment can, if improperly diagnosed and treated, snowball into a life-altering, permanent injury that prevents that worker from ever going back to work. Too often, providers choose a conservative intervention in the beginning of a workers’ compensation case, usually due to its low cost. But when applied in the wrong circumstances, conservative treatment can cost more in the long run, as later more costly treatment is required.
Read Full Article At Ohsonline.com
