INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) - New data published by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs shows opioid prescription rates at VA hospitals in Indiana have dropped sharply in the past five years.
The decrease – part of a trend at VA hospitals nationwide – suggests the VA is successfully changing its internal culture to help slow an opioid epidemic that led to rampant addictions and deaths among veterans.
“We are very pleased with the numbers,” said Dr. Imtiaz Munshi, chief of staff at the Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis, where the opioid prescription rate has dropped about 45% since 2012. “Opioids really do work when they are used appropriately, but we want to make sure we are giving the lowest dose necessary.”
The VA’s newly-released prescription rate is calculated by dividing the number of veterans who received any opioid prescription at a VA facility’s pharmacy by the total number of veterans who received a prescription from that pharmacy during a specific time period. At Roudebush, the number of patients who received an opioid prescription decreased from 24% in 2012 to 13% in 2017. During that same time, the opioid prescription rate at the Marion VA Medical Center dropped from 22% to 12%.
Doctors attribute the decrease to the VA’s Opioid Safety Initiative, an ongoing program designed to decrease opioid overdose among veterans and to address the broader opioid epidemic in the United States.
Munshi says the program in Indianapolis includes offering veterans multiple alternatives to prescription painkillers.
“Tai chi, acupuncture, chiropractic medicine, intensive physical therapy, aquatic therapy, we offer all those options now, along with a lot of edcuation,” he explained. “Our goal is to truly customize treatment to what the patients’ needs are so we can provide the right resources for veterans and their families.”
For veterans like Richard Lee, the opioid reduction program is working.
Lee says he was hit by an army tank while serving in Iraq in 1991, and he has suffered back pain ever since.
For years, VA doctors prescribed him heavy doses of opioids to deal with the pain. The addictive medication masked the pain and also dulled his senses.
“I slept all day, couldn't do nothing, couldn't drive, none of that,” he told WTHR, adding that, for years, opioids were the only pain treatment the VA offered him.
Two years ago, he met Dr. Nabiha Gill at the Roudebush VA Medical Center, who offered him new treatment options.
“She sent me to another doctor to find out exactly what discs were out of place, and I got more services to help my pain,” Lee said. “Before I was on a lot of pain medication. Now, it’s very minimal and I’m still comfortable and talking and walking. I can drive. I can play with my grandkids.”
Lee now visits the VA medical center twice a week to receive pain therapies, which include aquatic exercise and individual counseling sessions. He says his opioids have been reduced 80% in the past two years.
Those success stories are a stark contrast to the situation veterans reported to WTHR in 2014, when 13 Investigates showed how the VA overprescribed opioids to thousands of veterans with tragic results.
Some VA doctors reported patients receiving as many as 3,000 pain pills per month. When the physicians tried to wean their patients off of the addictive drugs, they told WTHR they were disciplined and threatened by their bosses at the VA.
13 Investigates showed a local soldier who received 15,000 pills a year from a VA hospital. Many of them were powerful painkillers.
"I lost three years of my life where I barely remember anything," combat veteran Jeremy Brooking told WTHR in 2014. "I'd sleep 23 out of 24 hours of the day because of those pills. It destroyed our family. It really destroyed me."
And it killed countless veterans, like Lance Pilgrim. The young combat veteran who served in Iraq died from an accidental drug overdose once he got home. His death certificate cites too much methadone and hydrocode -- drugs prescribed by a VA treatment program. Pilgrim was introduced to the opioids when army doctors prescribed them for a broken finger.
The VA's Opioid Safety Program is meant to change all that, and the VA wants to the public to see its progress. It has publicly posted its opioid prescription rates for 146 VA facilities at a new website.