Postoperative Opioid Prescribing Levels Might Not Influence Patient Satisfaction Scores

Many clinicians are concerned that patients might report less satisfaction with pain management if their requests for opioid prescriptions are denied. To explore this issue in the context of postoperative pain, researchers used insurance claims data to identify 31,481 patients who underwent surgery at 47 Michigan hospitals; they correlated postdischarge opioid prescribing with patients' pain satisfaction scores on a “hospital consumer” survey. Patients were excluded if they had prolonged hospital stays or repeat surgical procedures. Opioid prescriptions during 30 days after discharge were converted to oral morphine equivalents (OMEs), and hospitals were stratified by opioid prescribing quintiles ranging from <356 OMEs to >465 OMEs.

Overall, …