Addiction to Opioids and Implications for Employers

Addiction to opioids is a deadly serious U.S. crisis that not only affects public health but social and economic welfare. According to the CDC, the economic burden of prescription opioid misuse alone in this country is $78.5 billion annually, including healthcare costs, treatment, criminal justice involvement — and lost productivity. It’s a problem that has been worsening for the last two decades or so, but one that jumped 30 percent between 2019 and 2020. Then the pandemic exacerbated it.

However, employers can do their part to help mitigate the epidemic in several ways. In fact, organizations should play a prominent role in heightening awareness of the problem as well as access to support.

With that, here’s what you should know about addiction to opioids and implications for employers.

The Issue

Problems having to do with behavioral health — which focuses on daily actions, habits, and behaviors that affect a person’s mental or physical health — cause significant issues for individuals and create huge business challenges. In fact, they cost $250 billion in lost productivity alone.

But if employees who have such issues have access to tools, quality care, and crisis intervention, everyone involved can benefit. 

What are Opioids?

Sometimes called narcotics, opioids are a class of drugs that include heroin, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and pain relievers such as OxyContin, Vicodin, codeine, morphine, and others.

The Employer’s Role

Employers can be proactive here. For example, they can bring public health messaging into the workplace to educate, yes, but also to help lessen stigmas that are too often linked to substance abuse issues.  Such awareness campaigns can highlight the dangers of sharing medications, say, as well as the prevalence and availability of support resources, programs, and initiatives.

Also, employers must increasingly train supervisors and managers to know how to approach employees who demonstrate certain signals and help get them into the proper programs. Behavioral health consultants can help here.

The first step in developing such efforts is getting your arms around the problem among your employee population. You can see whether data points to certain employee segments that have above-average use of opioids, for instance, and whether there are medical or behavioral health conditions among your ranks that are commonly linked to opioid pain medication usage.

Employee Assistance Programs

Most employers offer some manner of EAP that provides counseling as well as support programs and services for behavioral health issues including addiction as well as a myriad of work and life issues.

EAPs can be an effective first step for employees who are experiencing opioid problems. Through counseling, assessment, and other services, employees can be directed to resources and treatment efforts that are offered through employee benefit plans. What’s key here, though, is the EAP vendor’s ability to detect opioid use and abuse, and their integration with other benefit programs.

The problem is that such EAPs are typically underutilized. Organizations can combat this by promoting the programs, making their value known, and making sure the program is easy to access.

In sum, as an employer, you now know there are implications when it comes to opioid addiction. But there’s something positive you can contribute to what is a burgeoning problem, and that is putting in place innovative solutions that are customized to suit employees’ specific challenges.

If you do that, employees are more likely to take advantage of them. And that will ultimately lead to more productivity and lower organizational costs. We suggest that you enlist the help of Mercer, which has just such a behavioral health solution.