Garcia M, et al. - Opioid prescribing rates were investigated among primary health care providers in rural and urban counties. Among primary care providers in rural areas, prescribing rates for opioids were significantly higher than urban areas. The CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain (2016) appeared to be available for assisting the primary care providers in rural areas improve prescribing practices. Better access to opioid agonist medication-assisted treatment programs and non-opioid treatment for pain, like physical therapy, could also benefit rural communities with high opioid use disorder rates.

• From January 2014 to March 2017, the physicians performed a retrospective study using de-identified athenahealth Electronic Health Record prescription data from U.S. primary health care providers.
• They included 31,422 primary care providers, covering services for over 17 million patients, whose basic demographics were similar to the U.S. rural/urban distribution.
• They calculated monthly prescribing rates per 100 persons for rural and urban counties* for both short and long-acting opioid types combined.

• Preliminary results demonstrated that during the study period, average monthly prescribing rates for opioids were 7.8 per 100 persons in urban areas and 11.8 in rural areas.
• Overall, rural rates were about 53% higher than in urban areas during the study period.
• In rural areas, prescribing rates for adults (ages 19 and older) were one and a half times higher than in urban areas.
• In rural areas, rates decreased at a slower rate (from 11.2 to 9.5 per 100), while prescribing rates for opioids decreased in both urban and rural areas.