For those working across the personal injury insurance sector, there has been a limited understanding around the impact medication has on an individual’s recovery. Recent research has highlighted some medications have the potential for negative health outcomes, dependence and accidental overdose.
In 2018 more Australian’s lost their lives to prescription medication than the national road toll.
The Penington Institute recently published Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2020. Prescription medication deaths outnumbered the road toll every year between 2014-2018. Every day in Australia, nearly 150 hospitalisations and 14 emergency department admissions involve opioid harm, and three people die from drug-induced deaths involving opioid use.
These findings attest to the need for further research and action to combat avoidable dependency and accidental overdose.
There have been, and still are, many effective marketing campaigns that focus on community health and safety – blood donations, skin cancer checks, anti-smoking, road safety and more recently the national campaign for COVID-19. These campaigns raised much needed community awareness, and over time, changed outcomes for many Australians.
However, there has never been a campaign that addresses the mounting issues surrounding potentially harmful medications and the lack of community awareness on the topic.
Positive steps to help reduce overdose
Recently, the Australian Government asked the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to play a role in tackling the problem. Recent measures put in place have been carefully considered to ensure that they support the safe and clinically appropriate use of opioids, without restricting prescribers from accessing them for their patients when needed.
SIRA has recently published the Better Practice Guide: Medication Management to provide guidance to Insurers regarding medications that should be monitored and regularly reviewed.
This is a great start, but more needs to be done.
Promoting care and accountability across the entire industry
Claims Pharmacy has been working with Australian Insurers since 2016 to protect injured people on the road to recovery. We are the only program in Australia that monitors progress, helps minimise reliance on medication and ensures injured people get back to optimal health as efficiently as possible. We are proudly protective of our injured people and we want to ensure the system does not un-intentionally let them down.
Our data-driven program helps monitor, identify and resolve risks associated with prescription medicines, providing end-to-end care that monitors an injured persons progress, helps minimise their reliance on medication, and ensures they get back to optimal health as soon as possible.
We believe in improving the health outcomes for injured people and that the road to recovery shouldn’t be taken alone. It is our collective responsibility to help reduce the rate of addiction, secondary injury and death from prescription medications.
Together, we can make a difference. Click here to enquire about how Claims Pharmacy can help.