Joe Paduda, president of CompPharma, LLC, will testify before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections hearing about opioids. “The Opioid Epidemic: Implications for the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act” hearing starts at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 8.
“Unfortunately, when it comes to dealing with the opioid crisis, FECA is five or six years behind the rest of the workers’ compensation industry,” Paduda said. Read More

That’s the key lesson from a session on dealing with legacy opioid claims at the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions’ 104^th convention in Virginia.

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The California Division of Workers’ Compensation’s recent changes to the nine-month-old drug formulary specifically list several newly named drugs as prohibited for pain management — baffling experts who say some of these drugs are unusual for treating pain and wonder why they are being introduced into the new formulary language.

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Pharmacy costs in workers’ compensation have decreased by $1.1 billion during the past eight years, according to CompPharma’s 15th Annual Survey of Prescription Drug Management in Workers’ Compensation. “Pharmacy is no longer the fastest-growing segment of work comp medical expenses,” said Joe Paduda, president of CompPharma, LLC.

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Work comp drug costs have dropped by over a billion dollars over the last eight years. What’s even better news is this has been driven largely by sharply lower opioid utilization.

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Pharmacy costs in workers’ compensation have decreased by $1.1 billion during the past eight years as the result of fewer opioid prescriptions, among other reasons, according to a study released Wednesday by CompPharma L.L.C.

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Federal workers’ compensation programs fall far behind the regulations established by states and the private sector for opioid prescriptions, resulting in an increased likelihood for opiate abuse and addiction, according to experts who spoke May 8, 2018, before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

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The workers’ compensation program for federal employees is trailing other large-scale programs in addressing opioid addiction, witnesses told a House Education and the Workforce subcommittee May 8.

Doctors are allowed to prescribe up to two opioids for up to 60 days under Federal Employees Compensation Act guidelines. Some state guidelines for workers’ compensation programs allow initial opioid prescriptions of no more than seven days, Joe Paduda, president of CompPharma, told the panel.

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Doctors have long prescribed a muscle relaxant called cyclobenzaprine to treat injuries like back strains, using five- or 10-milligram pills.

But doctors who also dispense the drugs they prescribe directly to patients have recently embraced a new pill that contains 7.5 milligrams of the muscle relaxant. There is no evidence to suggest that the pill works any better except, perhaps, for doctors and the middlemen supplying them. They can charge $3.45, or about five times as much as a five- or 10-milligram pill.

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Tampa, FL – Drug costs still worry workers’ compensation payers, despite relatively flat pharmacy costs, according to the results of CompPharma’s annual survey report of Prescription Drug Management in Workers’ Compensation. Answering the question “How big of a problem are drug costs?” on a scale of 1-5 with 3 being “Drug costs are equally as important at other medical cost issues,” respondents put drug costs at 4.1.

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