Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome: Influence of a Combined Inpatient/Outpatient Methadone Treatment Regimen on the Average Length of Stay of a Medicaid NICU Population

Prescription opioid and heroin abuse have been increasing steadily year after year, and continue to be a serious national problem. A sequela of the increase in opioid abuse has been an increase in the number of infants born with opioid dependence. These infants often require costly, prolonged stays in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for drug withdrawal treatment. The authors studied a population of infants from a large Medicaid health plan who were born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) secondary to in utero opioid exposure to assess the average length of stay in the NICU, and to determine the variables that may account for differences in interinstitutional lengths of stay. The overall average length of stay for NAS was 21.1 days for the 139 infants included in the study. Analysis of the medication used for treatment revealed that infants who were treated with a combined inpatient/outpatient regimen with methadone had an average length of stay of 11.4 days versus 25.1 days for infants who were treated entirely as inpatients (P<0.001), a 55% reduction in average length of stay. In 2009 there were an estimated 13,600 cases of NAS in the United States at a cost of $53,000 per case. A 55% reduction in length of stay corresponds to $396 million in annual savings for the treatment of NAS. Development of successful combined inpatient/outpatient management programs for NAS warrants further consideration.