Nearly 30 Percent of Medicare Beneficiaries Obtain Painkillers from Multiple Doctors

About 30 Percent Medicare beneficiaries obtain painkillers from multiple providers, a new study has found.

According to the researchers, multiple opioid prescriptions increase the risk of hospitalizations due to painkiller-related complications. The study was led by Anupam Jena, M.D., Ph.D. an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and included researchers from University of Minnesota and the University of Southern California.

Opioid analgesics prescription has touched 200 million per year in the U.S (2009 data). These painkillers are important, but their overuse can lead to several health complications and can cause death.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2008 nearly 14,800 people died due to prescription painkiller overdose. An earlier article published in The Lancet said that America has become a heavily, and legally medicated society, describing the extent of painkiller abuse in the U.S.

The present study was based on data from 20 percent of people enrolled in the Medicare's prescription benefit, or Medicare Part D. Over 1.8 million beneficiaries who filled opoid prescription in 2010 were part of the current study.

The team found that 30 percent of these beneficiaries were getting painkillers from multiple providers.

"I thought it would be 5 to 10 percent," Jena said in a news release. "When we ran the numbers and it turned out to be 30 percent, we were shocked."

Researchers also found a link between number of prescriptions and risk of painkiller-related hospitalizations.

"Patients with four or more prescribers were twice as likely to be hospitalized for narcotics-related complications than patients receiving the same number of prescriptions from a single caregiver," said Professor Pinar Karaca-Mandic, Ph.D., study co-author and assistant professor at University of Minnesota School of Public Health, according to a news release. 

The research was funded by the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health, the National Institute on Aging and a University of Minnesota Academic Health Center Faculty Development Grant.

The study is published in the journal BMJ.