Opioid prescription patterns among radiation oncologists in the United States.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Radiation oncologists (ROs) play an important role in managing cancer pain; however, their opioid prescribing patterns remain poorly described.

Methods

The 2016 Medicare Physician Compare National Downloadable and the 2016 Medicare Part D Prescriber Data files were cross-linked to identify RO-written opioid prescriptions.

Results

Of 4,627 identified ROs, 1,360 (29.3%) wrote >10 opioid prescriptions. The average number of opioid prescriptions written was significantly (P ≤ .05) associated with the following RO characteristics: sex [13.1 ± 36.5 male vs 7.5 ± 16.9 female]; years since medical school graduation [4.5 ± 11.5 1-10 years vs 12.6 ± 26.0 11-24 years vs 13.3 ± 40.9 ≥25 years]; practice size [15.5 ± 44.6 size ≤10 vs 13.3 ± 25.9 size 11-49 vs 8.5 ± 12.7

SUBMITTER: Huang TQ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7221425 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature