Green Health Live

  • Personal Health
  • Family Health
  • Health News
  • Health Problems
  • Kids Health
  • Medications
  • Beauty & Balance

Home » Medications » People who qualify for Medicare due to disability account for most opioid-related deaths

People who qualify for Medicare due to disability account for most opioid-related deaths

11/26/2019

New findings from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston show that patients qualifying for Medicare because of a disability have the highest rates of opioid overdose deaths compared with older Medicare beneficiaries and commercial insurance beneficiaries. The findings are now available in JAMA Network Open. The study, led by Yong-Fang Kuo, UTMB professor in the department of preventive medicine and population health, found that Medicare beneficiaries who qualify because of a disability are a growing group of patients hospitalized for opioid or heroin overdose and account for 25 percent of deaths from prescription opioid overdose each year. Previous research shows that not many of these patients make use of opioid treatment programs.

In the study, the researchers analyzed a nationally representative sample of Medicare data, including 1,766,790 people who qualified for Medicare because of a disability to assess the rate of opioid overdose deaths and identify its associated risk factors. Although these disability patients account for only 14.9 percent of the entire Medicare population, they were also found to represent 81 percent of all opioid-related deaths among this group.

“We found that among the patients who have Medicare because of disability, the rates of opioid overdose deaths were higher among people who grapple with substance misuse, psychiatric diseases or chronic pain,” said senior author Kuo of UTMB.

Source: Read Full Article

Related posts:
  1. Better strategies to ID people at risk for opioid-related overdose deaths needed, study suggests
  2. Why the US remains the world’s most expensive market for ‘biologic’ drugs
  3. Open-science model for drug discovery expands to neurodegenerative diseases
  4. For many, friends and family, not doctors, serve as a gateway to opioid misuse
  5. Study finds most risks for heart attacks, strokes, deaths around world could be improved
  • Medications

Post navigation

« At one health system, self-service portal now accounts for 28% of collections
HIV: Overwhelming the enemy from the start »
Family Health News
Ashley Graham Reveals She Gets Dozens of Acupuncture Needles in Her Face to Help with Pregnancy

Jenna Dewan's Boyfriend Steve Kazee Shares Stunning Pregnancy Shot of the Actress: 'I Love You'

The One Baby Product Line Behati Prinsloo Loves So Much, She Uses It Herself

Health News
Not a reader? Do yourself a favour and pick up a book today

Surgeons Transplant a Testicle From One Brother to His Twin

Denmark Raises Antibiotic-Free Pigs. Why Can’t the U.S.?

Medications
A nine-enzyme chain-reaction approach for making the HIV drug islatravir

Study: Minimum dose of hydromethylthionine could slow cognitive decline in mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s

Copyright © 2019
We and our partners use cookies on this site to improve our service, perform analytics, personalize advertising, measure advertising performance, and remember website preferences.Ok