Massachusetts and Hawaii have the Highest and Lowest Opioid Abuse Hospitalization Rates Respectively
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By: Jeffrey Maser Nov. 13, 2017
Opioid abuse is a massive problem in the United States. The healthcare system as a whole is devoting a tremendous amount of time and money to this national public health emergency yet opioid abuse inpatient stays and ED admissions continue to rise nationwide. To assess this issue on a more local level, Dexur analysts generated inpatient opioid abuse hospitalization rates on the state level across the U.S. for the time period of October 2015 - September 2016.
An inpatient opioid abuse hospitalization rate is measured as the number of Medicare inpatient discharges with Opioid Abuse over total Medicare enrollment within the specified population. This metric is an indicator of how often Medicare enrollees within a population are using their healthcare coverage for opioid abuse related discharges. The national rate for this metric during the time period analyzed was 0.43%, although many states experienced significant variation from this value.
As seen in the table below, the states with the five highest opioid abuse hospitalization rates were Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Oregon and Washington while the states with five lowest rates were Hawaii, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. Massachusetts had an Opioid Abuse Hospitalization Rate of 0.84% while Hawaii had a rate of 0.15%. Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States, had a rate of 0.04% within their population.
| State / U.S. Territory | Medicare Enrollments (Fee for Service - Original Medicare) | Total Inpatient Medicare Discharges for Opioids Abuse for 2015 Oct - 2016 Sep | Hospitalization Rate for Opioids Abuse for 2015 Oct - 2016 Sep (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | 978905 | 8226 | 0.84 |
| Minnesota | 417984 | 3368 | 0.81 |
| Rhode Island | 133665 | 1075 | 0.8 |
| Oregon | 436423 | 3204 | 0.73 |
| Washington | 863343 | 5924 | 0.69 |
| State / U.S. Territory | Medicare Enrollments (Fee for Service - Original Medicare) | Total Inpatient Medicare Discharges for Opioids Abuse for 2015 Oct - 2016 Sep | Hospitalization Rate for Opioids Abuse for 2015 Oct - 2016 Sep (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas | 425134 | 1025 | 0.24 |
| Nebraska | 280925 | 548 | 0.2 |
| Iowa | 482268 | 819 | 0.17 |
| South Dakota | 126110 | 219 | 0.17 |
| Hawaii | 137336 | 208 | 0.15 |
| Puerto Rico | 197248 | 83 | 0.04 |
As the table indicates, the opioid abuse hospitalization rate in Massachusetts is nearly twice the national average. Hawaii residents, on the other hand, experienced an opioid abuse hospitalization rate that was only a third as high as the national average.
Although recent research notes that opioid abuse is most closely linked with those between the ages of 25-44, it is clear that the mostly elderly Medicare population is not immune from these dangers. By examining regional variation in opioid abuse, one can begin to formulate a hypothesis for the strongest factors contributing to this national epidemic.
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