Opioid prescriptions continue to decline

A new report from the AMA Opioid Task Force finds that for the fifth year in a row, not just the number of prescriptions but also the recommended dosage for opioids has fallen. And while there’s more to do, doctors are pushing lawmakers to take additional action, such as removing barriers to treatment.

So says a report from the American Medical Association, which highlighted some of the results from the task force’s data. The number of prescriptions for opioids, for instance, dropped by more than 80 million, or 33 percent nationally, in the period between 2013 and 2018. Just between 2017 and 2018, opioid prescriptions fell by 12.4 percent—20 million fewer.

Related: Responding to criticism, FDA takes action on opioid oversight

In addition, prescription opioid total morphine milligram equivalents have fallen 43 percent since 2011, falling 17.1 percent just in 2018—with each state in the country recording a drop in opioid prescriptions over the last five years.

Prescription monitoring is up, with more than 460 million queries made in 2018—that’s more than triple the number made in 2016—to keep tabs via states’ prescription drug monitoring programs.

The demand for naloxone—the opioid overdose antidote—is up, with the number of prescriptions for it rising from 136,395 in 2016 to almost 600,000 in 2018.

The report acknowledges that there’s more to be done, particularly since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that more than 130 Americans die after overdosing on opioids, mostly heroin and illicitly distributed versions of fentanyl.

“We need help from policymakers to ensure that more people have access to treatment,” says AMA President-elect Patrice A. Harris, MD, who also is chair of the task force. ”Physicians are responding to the epidemic and we are seeing results. But we cannot enforce parity laws, or eliminate administrative barriers without the help of state and federal authorities, and that’s what is limiting treatment now.”

The task force has issued a number of recommendations, including:

• The removal of punitive policies, prior authorization barriers, step therapy and other methods that impose delays or obstacles to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder
• Removing administrative and other barriers from comprehensive, multimodal, multidisciplinary pain care and rehabilitation programs
• Additional support for assessment, referral and treatment for co-occurring mental health disorders
• Enforcement of state and federal laws that require insurance parity for mental health and substance-use disorders
• Improved access to evidence-based treatment; and reforms in the civil and criminal justice system
• More help to ensure access to medication-assisted treatment and other forms of proven quality care

Read more: 

• Opioid manufacturers: A public nuisance?
• The opioid crisis: How should employers respond?
• Opioid prescriptions ebb but addiction, overdoses still vex U.S.