Healthcare costs and use before and after opioid overdose in Veterans Health Administration patients with opioid use disorder

Aims

To compare healthcare costs and use between United States (US) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) who experienced an opioid overdose (OD cohort) and patients with OUD who did not experience an opioid overdose (non-OD cohort).

Design

This is a retrospective cohort study of administrative and clinical data.

Setting

The largest integrated national health-care system is the US Veterans Health Administration's healthcare systems.

Participants

We included VHA patients diagnosed with OUD from October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. We identified the index date of overdose for patients who had an overdose. Our control group, which included patients with OUD who did not have an overdose, was randomly assigned an index date. A total of 66 513 patients with OUD were included for analysis (OD cohort: n = 1413; non-OD cohort: n = 65 100).

Measurements

Monthly adjusted healthcare-related costs and use in the year before and after the index date. We used generalized estimating equation models to compare patients with an opioid overdose and controls in a difference-in-differences framework.

Findings

Compared with the non-OD cohort, an opioid overdose was associated with an increase of $16 890 [95% confidence interval (CI) = $15 611–18 169; P < 0.001] in healthcare costs for an estimated $23.9 million in direct costs to VHA (95% CI = $22.1 million, $25.7 million) within the 30 days following overdose after adjusting for baseline characteristics. Inpatient costs ($13 515; 95% CI = $12 378–14 652; P < 0.001) reflected most of this increase. Inpatient days (+6.15 days; 95% CI, = 5.33–6.97; P < 0.001), inpatient admissions (+1.01 admissions; 95% CI = 0.93–1.10; P < 0.001) and outpatient visits (+1.59 visits; 95% CI = 1.34–1.84; P < 0.001) also increased in the month after opioid overdose. Within the overdose cohort, healthcare costs and use remained higher in the year after overdose compared with pre-overdose trends.

Conclusions

The US Veterans Health Administration patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) who have experienced an opioid overdose have increased healthcare costs and use that remain significantly higher in the month and continuing through the year after overdose than OUD patients who have not experienced an overdose.