Impact of Laws Regulating Pain Clinics on Opioid Prescribing and Opioid-Related Toxicity Among Texas Medicare Part D Beneficiaries:

Background: Pain management clinics are major sources of prescription opioids. Texas government passed several laws regulating pain clinics between 2009 and 2011 to reduce opioid-related toxicity. Understanding the impact of these laws can inform policy geared toward making the laws more effective in curbing the growing epidemic of opioid overdose, especially among the elderly population. Objectives: To examine the longitudinal association of laws regulating pain clinics on opioid-prescribing and opioid-related toxicity among Texas Medicare recipients. Methods: The 2007 to 2012 claims data for Texas Medicare Part D recipients were used to assess temporal trends in the percentage of patients filling any schedule II or schedule III opioid prescription, hospitalization for opioid toxicity, and their relationships to the 2009 to 2011 Texas laws regulating pain clinics. We excluded those with a cancer diagnosis. Join-point trend analysis with Bayesian Information Criterion selection methods were used to evalua...