Impact of Prescribed Opioids on Postal Service Employees Under the Federal Workers’ Compensation Program

Federal employees injured on the job, including those employed by the Postal Service, can receive benefits through the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA) program. The program provides compensation for lost wages, help in returning to work, medical treatment, and prescription medication. The DOL reported that almost 18,000 Postal Service employees received over 119,000 opioid prescriptions through the FECA in 2018, at a cost of almost $22 million. This was almost 3 percent of the Postal Service’s 634,000 employees. Our objective was to determine the impact of opioids being prescribed to Postal Service employees through the DOL’s FECA program.