Evaluation of Administrative Data for Identifying Maternal Opioid Use at Delivery in Florida

OBJECTIVES: Studies have shown significant increases in the prevalence of maternal opioid use. Most prevalence estimates are based on unverified ICD-10-CM diagnoses. This study determined the accuracy of ICD-10-CM opioid-related diagnosis codes documented during delivery and examined potential associations between maternal/hospital characteristics and diagnosis with an opioid-related code. METHODS: To identify people with prenatal opioid use, we identified a sample of infants born during 2017–2018 in Florida with a NAS related diagnosis code (P96.1) and confirmatory NAS characteristics (N = 460). Delivery records were scanned for opioid-related diagnoses and prenatal opioid use was confirmed through record review. The accuracy of each opioid-related code was measured using positive predictive value (PPV) and sensitivity. Modified Poisson regression was used to calculate adjusted relative risks (aRR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). RESULTS: We found the PPV was nearly 100% for all ICD-10-CM opioid-related codes (98.5–100%) and the sensitivity was 65.9%. Non-Hispanic Black mothers were 1.8 times more likely than non-Hispanic white mothers to have a missed opioid-related diagnosis at delivery (aRR:1.80, CI 1.14–2.84). Mothers who delivered at a teaching status hospital were less likely to have a missed opioid-related diagnosis (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS FOR PRACTICE: We observed high accuracy of maternal opioid-related diagnosis codes at delivery. However, our findings suggest that over 30% of mothers with opioid use may not be diagnosed with an opioid-related code at delivery, although their infant had a confirmed NAS diagnosis. This study provides information on the utility and accuracy of ICD-10-CM opioid-related codes at delivery among mothers of infants with NAS.