The Impact of Florida Law HB21 on Opioid Prescribing Patterns After Outpatient Hand Surgery

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of Florida lae House Bill 21 (HB21) on opioid prescribing patterns by a single orthopedic hand surgeon after outpatient hand and upper extremity surgery. The following variables were evaluated with retrospective chart review before and after implementation of HB21: type of opioid, number of pills, morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs), emergency department visits, and readmissions. In addition, the Florida Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (E-FORCSE [Electronic-Florida Online Reporting of Controlled Substance Evaluation]) was queried to determine the number of pills and MMEs prescribed and sold for the latter cohort. Student tests, Fisher exact tests, and binary logistic regression were used for statistical analysis. < .05 was considered significant. We reviewed 231 consecutive patients who underwent hand or upper extremity surgery from July 2017 to July 2018 and 207 consecutive patients from January 2020 to January 2021. The average age was significantly different between the cohorts (48.41 vs 44.98 years, = .025); however, there were no significant differences across other demographic variables. After controlling for age, the average number of pills prescribed per patient decreased significantly after HB21 (25.11 vs 21.6 pills, < .001). The number of MMEs prescribed per patient decreased as well, but the decrease was not statistically significant (167.8 vs 154.1 MMEs, = .054). There was an association between preoperative opioid prescriptions filled and prolonged opioid use (odds ratio 6.438, = .003). Florida law HB21 resulted in significantly fewer pills prescribed per patient, suggesting that legislation likely changed prescriber behavior and/or patient demand regarding postoperative opioid prescriptions after outpatient hand and upper extremity surgery.