Coming Soon: FAIR Health Opioid Tracker
August 15, 2024
In September, FAIR Health will launch its free, interactive Opioid Tracker, which will track opioid abuse and dependence state by state with data from 2023. The Opioid Tracker will be available on FAIR Health’s website fairhealth.org.
For years, FAIR Health has been using its rich and evolving repository of commercial healthcare claims to study the ongoing public health concern of opioid abuse and dependence. FAIR Health has published a widely covered and much cited series of original white papers covering diverse aspects of the opioid epidemic, including:
- National and regional diagnostic and treatment trends;
- The impact of the epidemic on the healthcare system, including the costs associated with insured and uninsured patients;
- Regional variations in the prevalence of and treatment protocols for opioid-related diagnoses; and
- Regional and state differences in procedures for opioid abuse and dependence.
FAIR Health’s studies on opioid abuse and dependence led to an invited address at the National Press Club and consultation with federal and state officials.
The Opioid Tracker will include a heat map representing patients with opioid abuse and dependence diagnoses as a percentage of all patients with a medical diagnosis in 2023 state by state. Clicking on a state will display an infographic for that state. The infographic includes the top five procedure codes by utilization for opioid abuse and dependence, the top five procedure codes by aggregate allowed amounts for opioid abuse and dependence, the change in patients with opioid abuse and dependence diagnoses as a percentage of all patients with a medical diagnosis from 2020 to 2023, and the distribution of patients with opioid abuse and dependence diagnoses by age and gender. There is also a similar infographic for the nation as a whole.
The Opioid Tracker joins FAIR Health’s series of trackers offering geographic windows into healthcare data. The series also includes the Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker, which tracks telehealth utilization by region across the nation; and the Cost of Giving Birth Tracker, which shows state-specific and national median costs for vaginal deliveries and C-sections.
FAIR Health President Robin Gelburd stated: “The Opioid Tracker will shed light on multiple aspects of opioid abuse and dependence, including utilization, costs, age and gender. We hope that the Opioid Tracker will be useful to all healthcare stakeholders, such as policy makers, payors, providers, patients and researchers, as they continue to track and seek to better understand and address this public health issue.”