A significant issue for anyone who's been injured in an accident, especially workers who've been injured on the job, is pain management.
Until recently, most pain management consisted of prescriptions for opioids and some physical therapy when appropriate. When the injury caused long-term chronic pain, often the treatment of choice was long-term opioid use
Opioids are defined as medications that relieve pain by reducing the intensity of pain signals reaching the brain, for example, hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet), morphine and fentanyl. Although some use the term “narcotics” to refer to these drugs, it's a less precise term.
|Early identification tool
Patients, medical professionals and the public are all concerned about the widespread, long-term use of such drugs and their harmful effects, as well as the strategies necessary to manage chronic pain from workplace injuries.
As a result, the New York City-based insurance giant Travelers Cos. Inc., a leading Workers' Compensation carrier, recently announced that it has developed what it says is the first predictive model designed to reverse a sharp rise in chronic pain caused by workplace injuries. Its Travelers Early Severity Predictor identifies the likelihood of an injured employee developing chronic pain so that they can avoid it in recovery and reduce the need to use opioids or other painkillers, the company said.
According to Dr. Adam Seidner, the National Medical Director at Travelers, “Millions of American workers are injured on the job each year, and the number of cases in which chronic pain interferes with an employee's recovery has risen from less than 10% a decade ago to more than half of all serious injuries today.” He explained, “When someone develops chronic pain, they are prescribed opioids or other painkillers more than 90% of the time. Our goal is to work with injured employees and their doctors to eliminate or substantially reduce the need for painkillers that can slow their recovery or lead to devastating long-term addiction.”
|Customized treatment
Beginning in early 2015, the Travelers Early Severity Predictor has been applied in more than 20,000 cases, with more than 9,000 injured employees identified as at risk of developing chronic pain, the company said.. These employees received a customized, sports-medicine-like regimen of treatment precisely sequenced to aid and accelerate their recovery.
“Helping employees avoid chronic pain and the slippery slope to possible opioid dependency is critical to reversing this disturbing and costly health crisis,” added Seidner.
Travelers, which manages more than 250,000 workplace injury claims and 3.5 billion medical treatments per year, reported that injured employees who participated in the program in the past year have, on average, recovered and returned to work more quickly. They were also far less likely to receive a prescription for opioids, and when they did, it was typically a lower dosage or only for short-term use. At the same time, medical expenses, which cost U.S. employers an average of nearly $40,000 per injury, were reduced by as much as 50%.
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Rosalie Donlon
Rosalie Donlon is the editor in chief of ALM's insurance and tax publications, including NU Property & Casualty magazine and NU PropertyCasualty360.com. You can contact her at [email protected].
