Media coverage and video clips of Joe Paduda’s testimony at May 8, 2018 hearing before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Federal Times
Injured feds are at higher risk of opioid addiction

Federal workers’ compensation programs fall far behind the regulations established by states and the private sector for opioid prescriptions, resulting in an increased likelihood for opiate abuse and addiction, according to experts who spoke May 8, 2018, before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

“CompPharma’s latest data indicates the workers’ comp industry has reduced opioid spend by over one-third in the last two years alone, and by over half over the last five years. Unfortunately, when it comes to dealing with the opioid crisis, the Federal Employee Compensation Act and administrators are five or six years behind the rest of the workers’ comp industry and time is running out for patients who have been taking opioids for an extended period of time,” Joe Paduda, president of CompPharma, said .

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“The workers’ compensation program for federal employees is trailing other large-scale programs in addressing opioid addiction, witnesses told a House Education and the Workforce subcommittee May 8.

Doctors are allowed to prescribe up to two opioids for up to 60 days under Federal Employees Compensation Act guidelines. Some state guidelines for workers’ compensation programs allow initial opioid prescriptions of no more than seven days, Joe Paduda, president of CompPharma, told the panel.