OBJECTIVES: In light of the US opioid crisis, a variety of policies to curb prescription opioid use are being implemented. This study evaluated the impact of access restriction to short-acting prescription opioids (SAPOs) on proportion of members with any prescription medication use filling SAPOs and average annual per-member utilization among SAPO users in one health plan in the state of Massachusetts, USA. METHODS: The policy restricting access to SAPOs (included 7-day supply quantity limit and prior authorization requirement for higher quantities) was implemented in a ~200,000 members Massachusetts health plan on January 1, 2017. Pre-post analyses were used to compare proportion of members filling SAPOs before vs after policy implementation. In addition, average per-member annual quantity among SAPO users was compared between the two periods. The policy under analyses applied to Medicaid and commercially covered members. Medicare Advantage members served as a control group. RESULTS: In 2016, 17.1% (20,079/117,176) of commercial, 18.1% of Medicaid (11,723/64,603) and 22.5% of Medicare Advantage members (2,041/9,078) with ≥ 1 prescription medication, filled ≥ 1 SAPO, respectively. In 2017, these values were 14.8 % (17,737/120,194), 16.0% (8,549/53,521) and 20.8% (1,881/9,066), respectively. The proportion of members with any prescription medication use filling SAPOs dropped 2.3%, 2.1% , and 1.7% among commercial, Medicaid, and Medicare Advantage populations. In 2016, among members with ≥ SAPO use, a per-member annual average of 150 and 163 tablets of SAPOs were filled by commercial and Medicaid populations, respectively. In 2017, these values were 136 and 155 tablets, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The policy restricting access to short-acting prescription opioids had an impact both on reducing proportion of members filling short-acting agents and the annual per-member average tablet count among SAPO users. These findings indicate that managed care access policies can play a role in curbing the national opioid epidemic.