Study Finds 90% of Medicare Patients Have Little Risk of Opioid Overdose

Pain News Network

Study Finds 90% of Medicare Patients Have Little Risk of Opioid Overdose

March 22, 2019

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Current methods used to identify Medicare patients at high risk of overdosing on prescription opioids target many people who are not really at high risk, according to a team of researchers who found that over 90% of patients have little to no risk of overdosing. 

The computer models developed three risk groups that predict which patients are at risk of overdosing over a 12 month period.

·         Low risk patients (67.5%) have 0.006% risk of overdose

·         Medium risk patients (23.3%) have 0.05% risk of overdose

·         High risk patients (9.1%) have 1.77% risk of overdose

Put another way, out of 100,000 Medicare patients in the low risk group, six would have an overdose; while there would be 1,770 overdoses in a high risk group of the same size

READ the whole Article at Pain Network News