BATON ROUGE- The Louisiana Department of Health and the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy announced today that new data shows there are fewer opioids being prescribed since Medicaid expansion began in July 2016.

The Board of Pharmacy the says the number of opioid prescriptions have decreased by 2.08% from the year before the Medicaid expansion to the year after, and that the total number of pills prescribed has decreased by more than 10 million doses.

In 2017 alone, when Medicaid policy changes were first implemented, the number of pills per prescription for Medicaid patients have decreased by more than 25%.

Health officials partly attribute these reductions to policy changes made by the Legislature and by the Medicaid program.

"When it comes to the prescribing of opioids, it is good news to see those who need the medications are getting them, and that the controls we've put in place to limit these medications are working," Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement.