Opioid dependence is running rampant through the U.S. as insurance claims and fatal overdoses hit record highs, a study from FAIR Health states.
FAIR Health determined this through the use of a database that looked at the more than 20 billion privately billed healthcare claims to identify trends and patterns among the privately insured. The organization is a national, independent, nonprofit dedicated to transparency in healthcare costs and healthcare insurance.
Four things you need to know:
1. The crisis is disproportionately affecting white, middle-class people in non-urban settings, including those with private health insurance, which is unlike any previous opioid abuse epidemic.
2. From 2007 to 2014, opioid dependence raised by 3,204 percent. Private claims related to opioid use have also been on the rise since 2011.
3. More than 28,000 people died from opioid use in 2014 with prescription opioid abuse being a major factor in the epidemic. Prescription abuse has been linked to an increase in heroin abuse.
4. Sixty-nine percent of the insurance claims came from adults between the ages of 19- to 35-years-old. In specific age categories, men that are 19- to 45-years-old accounted for 67 percent of the opioid dependence claims. Thirty-three percent were from women that age. That gap narrows with ages, however, as 46- to 55-year-old men and women made up 55 percent and 45 percent of the claims, respectively.
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