CMS posts update of Medicare Part D Opioid Prescribing Mapping Tool

Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released an updated version of the Medicare Part D opioid prescribing mapping tool.  The mapping tool is an interactive, web-based visualization resource that presents geographic comparisons- at the state, county, and ZIP code levels - of Medicare Part D opioid prescribing rates.  It allows users to understand and compare opioid prescribing at the local level and better understand how this critical issue affects communities across the country. 

The updated version of the mapping tool presents Medicare Part D opioid prescribing rates for 2015 as well as the change in opioid prescribing rates from 2013 to 2015.  New for this release is additional information on extended-release opioid prescribing rates, which have been associated with misuse, including both addiction and overdose deaths as well as analyses that identify county-level hot spots and outliers.  In total, for Medicare Part D, there were approximately 80 million opioid claims for 111 distinct opioid products in 2015, accounting for $3.5 billion in spending. 

The updated Medicare Part D Opioid Prescribing Mapping Tool can be accessed at: https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/Medicare-Provider-Charge-Data/OpioidMap.html

All of the above data assets are also catalogued on Healthdata.gov:  http://www.healthdata.gov/dataset/search

The Data Navigator development team welcomes your feedback. Write to us at DataNavigator@cms.hhs.gov.