Do Opioids Help Injured Workers Recover and Get Back to Work? The Impact of Opioid Prescriptions on Duration of Temporary Disability

Abstract

We estimate the effect of opioid prescriptions on the duration of temporary disability benefits among workers with work-related low back injuries. We use local opioid prescribing patterns to construct an instrumental variable that generates variation in opioid prescriptions but is arguably unrelated to injury severity or other factors directly affecting disability duration. Local prescribing patterns have a strong relationship with whether injured workers receive opioid prescriptions, including longer-term prescriptions. We find that more longer-term opioid prescribing leads to considerably longer duration of temporary disability, but there is little effect of a small number of opioid prescriptions over a short period of time.

Economic Studies on the Opioid Crisis: A Review

“…Using firm-worker matched data from Denmark, Laird and Nielsen (2017) find that additional opioid prescribing decreases labor force participation and income. Similarly, Savych et al (2018) demonstrate that longerterm opioid prescribing increases the duration of temporary disability spells among those receiving Workers Compensation benefits in the U.S. However, some analyses of survey data on individuals indicate that SUDs are not associated with transitions from full-to part-time work, or with on-the-job problems with coworkers, or financial strain (Baldwin and Marcus, 2014;Maclean et al, 2015).…”

Opioids and the Labor Market

“…When used as a source of identifying variation, the location of pill mills (Harris et al (2019)), moves to new physicians (Laird and Nielsen (2016)), and the timing of state-level opioid laws (Deiana and Giua (2018)) have all provided evidence that increasing local prescription rates decreases participation. Likewise, variation in prescribing behavior across care providers has provided evidence that the duration of disability following an injury increases when long-term opioid treatment is prescribed (Savych et al (2018)).…”

Is the Rise in Illicit Opioids Affecting Labor Supply and Disability Claiming Rates?

“…Krueger (2017) and Aliprantis et al (2019) suggest that the rise in opioid prescribing since 2000 can explain a large share of the decline in labor force participation among men over that time period, comparing labor supply changes in areas with faster growth in opioid supply to those with lower growth. Currie et al (2019) and Savych et al (2019) also study geographic variation in measures of prescribing behavior over time. These papers rely on geographic-specific changes or cross-sectional variation in opioid prescribing or access, assuming that such variation occurs for reasons unrelated to labor market conditions.…”