Prescription drug monitoring program mandates and opioid prescriptions received by patients dying of cancer.

Abstract

11003 Background: Strong consensus supports opioid analgesics as first-line pain management for patients with poor prognosis cancer approaching the end of life (EoL). State legislations that mandate prescriber access of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) when prescribing opioids intend to mitigate unsafe opioid prescriptions but may have unintended consequences in restricting access to opioids for patients dying from cancer. This study seeks to assess associations between state implementation of comprehensive PDMP mandates –applicable to all prescribers and all clinical settings and not allowing prescriber discretion – with opioid prescriptions received by patients dying of cancer. Methods: We used SEER cancer registry linked with Medicare fee-for-service claims to identify 184,123 Medicare beneficiaries 66 years or older who died of cancer in 2011-2019 in one of 10 SEER states with an operating PDMP by the beginning of 2011. We measured opioid prescriptions dispensed to patients near the EoL, defined as 30 days prior to death or hospice admission. We exploited staggered implementation of comprehensive PDMP mandates and assessed the association of such implementation with opioid prescriptions dispensed to patients near the EoL. We estimated logistic regressions for dichotomous outcomes and Generalized Linear Models for continuous outcomes. Results: Implementation of comprehensive PDMP mandates was associated with a reduction in the rate of 1 or more opioid days near the EoL from 47.2% to 45.2% (difference, 0.02 [95% CI, -0.027, -0.012]), a reduction in the rate of 1 or more long-acting opioid days from 15.8% to 14.7% (difference, 0.011 [95% CI, -0.016, -0.006]), and a reduction of 130.8 (95% CI, -161.5, -100.2) in total morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs) and of 135.6 (95% CI, -215.1, -56.1) in MMEs from long-acting opioids among patients who received 1 or more days of opioids/long-acting opioids. Conclusions: Comprehensive PDMP mandates were associated with 4-9% reduction in opioid prescriptions dispensed to patients at the EOL. Specific strategies are needed to effectively exempt patients with active cancer from such mandates. [Table: see text]