Alternatives to Opioids Prescribing Rates Across States: Provider and Beneficiary Characteristics
Dr. Siying Liu presented a study of the role of physician characteristics (race, gender, specialty, and rural/urban location) and beneficiary characteristics (race, gender, age, dual status, and health risk score) in determining the prescription of alternatives to opioids.
Liu, S., Laux, M. & Alva, M. (2019, February). Alternatives to Opioids Prescribing Rates Across States: Provider and Beneficiary Characteristics. Poster presentation at the AcademyHealth National Health Policy Conference (NHPC), Washington, DC.
The path to opioid addiction often begins with doctor?s legal prescription of painkillers. To curb opioid over prescription, some health care providers are returning to alternatives to opiates (ALTOs) such as Acetaminophen, Gabapentin and many nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs as safe alternatives for alleviating pain.
We studied the role of physician characteristics (race, gender, specialty, and rural/urban location) and beneficiary characteristics (race, gender, age, dual status, and health risk score) in determining the prescription of ALTOs. We considered the interaction between the race (and gender) of the physician and that of his/her patients and investigated whether treating patients more similar to oneself increases the likelihood of prescribing ALTOs.
In the regression results of our preferred model for three outcomes, we found that across all outcomes, ALTOs prescription ratios are higher if the prescriber has a higher likelihood of treating patients of the same gender, and if the prescriber has a higher likelihood of treating patients of the same race.