Opioid Unknowns
Harvard Medical SchoolNearly 15 percent of opioid-naïve patients hospitalized under Medicare are discharged with a new prescription for opioids, according to a study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. Among those patients who received a prescription, 40 percent were still taking opioids 90 days after discharge. The rate of prescription varied almost twofold between hospitals, with some hospitals discharging as many as 20 percent of patients with a prescription for opioids.