According to The Surgeon General’s most recent report on Alcohol, Drugs and Health, over 21 million Americans are addicted to substance abuse. The mental and physical toll this takes on individuals, families and the workplace is too massive to properly assess. The number of deaths at workplaces due to overdose of drugs and alcohol, surged by more than 30% in 2016 alone.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention claims that opioid abuse costs businesses in upwards of $78 billion a year because of failure to show up at work, declined productivity and burgeoning healthcare costs.
Benefit advisers and health experts believe that physicians are largely to blame for this epidemic. They usually over prescribe medications more than is necessary without factoring in the possibility of patients developing addiction to the pills. Insurance companies are advised to put checks and balances to place a limitation on how much and for how long the doctors can prescribe drugs.
For physicians to respect and abide by the maximum threshold, will require the use of sanctions (or “threats”) in place. You could start by temporarily mulling the prescription licenses of ‘repeat offenders’. Most insurance companies have contracts with hospitals and physician groups which employ these doctors. They should draft appropriate agreements and put certain checks and balances to enforce best medical practices.
The workplace can be particularly hazardous to intoxicated workers
The workplace can be dangerous from a health perspective. For instance if someone is working at a processing plant which makes use of powerful machine grinders, an intoxicated worker who isn’t paying attention can get pulled in and suffer dangerous repercussions which could result in their deaths.
Employers should take important steps to take control of the opioid abuse.
Use a policy of zero tolerance. Take one randomly chosen employee every month and have them tested. This will obviously cost a tremendous amount of resources because of hiring a clinic to select and run tests on a worker, but one which will serve to decrease the likelihood of employees coming to the workplace with a drug problem. In order to spend the proper amount of capital, companies will have to weigh how much of a toll the drug abuse is taking on their business.
Most opioid abusers end up costing their employers twice as much in health care allowance than their relatively cleaner co workers. The amount could be an extra $9000 a year.
The risk of losing workforce
Some employers are too afraid to take control of the opioid problem at the workplace. They know their workers are far too dependent on pills for sanctions to take any effect on them. People who want to get employed by the federal government however will need to take drug tests and undergo extensive screening before getting employment.
It is obvious that private companies cannot afford nor have the motivation to follow the government’s lead but given that opioids killed more than 30,000 Americans in 2015, businesses are not beginning to give it more serious consideration.
