New Study Findings from State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo Illuminate Research in Opioids (Substance use identification and follow-up rates among commercial and Medicare health insurance members in primary care and other settings)

Health Policy and Law Daily

2020 NOV 23 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Data detailed on have been presented. According to news reporting originating from State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “The objective of this study was to investigate factors associated with substance use disorder identification and follow-up rates among samples of members of a private health insurance plan. In an observational study, samples of claims data for 2017 for Commercial and Medicare members from a private health insurer were accessed and analyzed using descriptive statistics, decision tree analysis, and linear regression models.”

The news journalists obtained a quote from the research from State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo: “Commercial and Medicare members differed in age. Medicare members had higher rates of inclusion in a measure of substance use disorder than Commercial members, lower rates of initial short term follow-up, more opioid prescriptions from primary care provides, fewer prescriptions for opioid treatment, and higher rates of selected comorbid conditions. Mental health diagnoses and substance use disorder co-occurred frequently and to a greater extent in the Medicare sample. Among commercial members, there were primarily alcohol problems that increased with age, while opioid problems at about 10% peaked in the mid-twenties. More males were included among all substance types. The overall rate for an initial short term follow-up visit indicating initiation of treatment was 30%. There were large differences in the follow-up rates across settings with a very low rate (4.6% for alcohol and 6.9% for opioid) in primary care settings.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “These results suggest that increased attention in primary care to young adult males and to older adults, may help to reduce substance use disorder rates, especially alcohol use disorders.”

For more information on this research see: Substance use identification and follow-up rates among commercial and Medicare health insurance members in primary care and other settings. BMC Family Practice, 2020,21(1):1-8. (BMC Family Practice - http://bmcfampract.biomedcentral.com). The publisher for BMC Family Practice is BMC.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-020-01286-8.

Our news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting John G. Baker, Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, School of Public Health and Health Professions, and Departments of Orthopaedics and Nuclear Medicine, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, SUNY. Additional authors for this research include David R. Doxbeck, Melanie E. Washington, Angela Horton, Adam Dunning.