Question How have opioid prescribing patterns for Medicare patients changed during the opioid epidemic among generalists and oncologists?
Findings In this cross-sectional study of the prescribing patterns of 251 820 generalists and 14 210 oncologists, analyzing Medicare Part D prescriber files, the annual adjusted mean rate of opioid prescriptions per 100 Medicare beneficiaries decreased from 68.2 to 49.7 among generalists (adjusted incidence rate ratio = 0.73) and from 77.8 to 58.8 among oncologists (adjusted incidence rate ratio = 0.76) between 2013 and 2017.
Meaning Oncologists and generalists had similar trends in decreasing opioid prescription rates, raising concern that access to appropriate opioid-based cancer pain management may be inadvertently restricted during the opioid epidemic.