The impact of physical therapy direct access policy on opioid shipments and opioid-related deaths: A difference-in-differences analysis
Geronimo Bejarano, Peter Hull, James J. Young, David J. Meyers, Kevin N. Griffith, Francesca Baratta, Francesca Baratta, Francesca Baratta · 2026
Read The impact of physical therapy direct access policy on opioid shipments and opioid-related deaths: A difference-in-differences analysis by Geronimo Bejarano, Peter Hull, James J. Young, David J. Meyers, Kevin N. Griffith, Francesca Baratta, Francesca Baratta, Francesca Baratta (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13252735.txt.
Description
Geronimo Bejarano and co-authors test whether easier access to physical therapy cuts opioid use in this 2026 policy study. Many United States states have let patients see a physical therapist directly, without a doctor's referral, a change rolled out at different times.
Comparing states that adopted direct access between 2006 and 2014 with those that did not, the team tracked opioid pill shipments and opioid deaths. After adoption, pill volume fell by about 15 percent relative to control states. Opioid deaths, however, showed no clear difference. The authors argue that referral barriers push patients toward pills, and removing them improves population health even if deaths take longer to move.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Geronimo Bejarano, Peter Hull, James J. Young, David J. Meyers, Kevin N. Griffith, Francesca Baratta, Francesca Baratta, Francesca Baratta |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 44716 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |