ArticleJournal of managed care & specialty pharmacy2025
Trends in opioid prescribing by oncologists for Medicare beneficiaries from 2014 to 2022.
Article in Journal of managed care & specialty pharmacy, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundOverprescribing of opioids has led to hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths and substantial health care costs. In response, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented a revised Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for opioids in 2018.
objectiveTo evaluate trends in opioid prescribing by oncologists for Medicare Part D beneficiaries from 2014 to 2022.
methodsThis cross-sectional study used data from the 2014-2022 Medicare Part D Prescriber Public Use Files. Opioid claims and prescribing trends were assessed by opioid types, oncologist subspecialty, geographic region, and rurality status. An interrupted time series analysis was conducted to assess the changes in oncologists' prescribing patterns before and after the 2018 REMS modifications.
resultsThe analysis included 25,371 unique oncologists, with the majority being male (66%) and specializing in hematology-oncology (47%). Over the study period, oncologists issued more than 9.4 million opioid prescriptions, with long-acting opioids accounting for 18% of these claims. Hematology-oncology specialists were responsible for the largest share of the prescriptions (67%). Oncologists practicing in the South and rural areas exhibited higher prescribing rates and longer average supply durations than those in other regions. A national sustainable decline in opioid prescribing was observed among oncologists between 2014 and 2022, with a significant immediate decline following 2018 in which the REMS changes were implemented.
conclusionsThe 2018 FDA REMS update coincided with significant declines in opioid prescribing by oncologists treating Medicare beneficiaries. Although other factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, may have also contributed to this decline, the sustained downward trend over time highlights the need for targeted policies and tailored provider education to ensure effective cancer pain management and to address persistent regional and rural-urban disparities in prescribing practices.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.