How could that happen? Are some people getting multiple prescriptions for painkillers? Or are prescriptions being written for phantom patients?
Doctor shopping is common. You see multiple doctors for the same condition. Get an prescription from your family doctor then go to your orthopedic doctor then another orthopedic doctor.
They might have scripts for more than 1 drug or from more than 1 doctor, or both.
Suppose we could wave a wand and stop all the prescriptions at once. ERS would be jammed with addicts going thru withdrawal. Blatant daylight stickups/ shootings would shoot thru the roof. Heroin ODs would skyrocket because when your best friend is Mr. Jones, you don't give a flying F#ck bout nothing but your friend.
no doubt, it's going to be a real shitstorm to get this under control
v
Of course you're right, but that argument doesn't work nowadays. "Spend money to save money" is a 20th-Century concept. Think of how much value we got out of the money we spent on Eisenhower's Interstate Highway initiative. Something like that happening now seems to me to be an impossibility.
Yes, you're right. The money is going to have to come from the local level, though. Where that leaves places like Oklahoma will be a bona fide horror show.
Sure, the research is not perfect, but absent evidence that a LOT more people are getting scripts after surgery, or for tooth removal, the trend is very troubling. Waiting to do something until the #s are perfect is gonna cost a lot of $$.
That's pretty drastic, but probably the only kind of thing that actually works
It is a much bigger problem than just opioids, sure. But WE ALREADY KNOW THE EFFECTS of these drugs. They make you an addict, and in far too many cases they kill you.
???Um, no. Tom Cruise is a Scientologist loon. Psychiatric drugs are a completely different topic.
There is, now. It was a long time coming, but it is part of Obamacare, and it may get gutted. If a guy breaks his femur in a car wreck, his docs ought to know BEFORE they load him on morphine.
The number of people on Metformin has gone way up, too, but diabetes and drug addiction are not much related. You seem to think we cannot solve the opioid epidemic without solving every problem in the entire history of medications. It is a common tactic of those who wish to see nothing done because it might cost someone some money: Universalize the problem.
there is, the MD just has to use it. My friend, an ER MD, gets this all the time. People driving 200 miles from home and needing pain meds. He is a cynical type of guy anyway, so he asks 'you just drove by 5 other ER's why did you stop here? And BTW, you got a script for xyz at the ER 20 miles away just yesterday. Sorry I cant help' Normally they reply, well someone stole my identity, to which he tells them, well you better get that straightened out, but its in the data base, I cant help you.
