I agree with you that physicians are writing more pain medication scripts than are probably necessary. I wish physician had more time in their visits to really get to know their patients more on a personal level as well as a medical level. I understand that a long-term friendship may not blossom from this visits but knowing a patient well enough to know whether or not the symptoms presented are true is of the utmost importance. I wish there was a way for physicians to request or require their patients to try alternative care such as holistic, chiropractor, or even acupuncture to try to relieve their pain before prescribing pain medications. I understand some patients may be totally against an alternative approaches and at that point in time the physician could write a script for a limited supply of medication. I think it would be beneficial for a re-evaluation of the patient be paramount before calling in another script. …show more content…
I do understand that some parameters will need to be set that would ensure that new patients who needed assistance because they have recently moved to the area and have brought their medical records. I would hope this would eliminate a patient from “doctor shopping” in order to go from physician’s office to physician’s office to obtain numerous scripts.
In order to piggy-back onto the idea of eliminating “doctor shopping” I wish there was a way to initiate a national medication database that would allow pharmacies to work together and look up a patient and every place they may have medications filled. This would allow them to red-flag and prevent habitual recipients from filling numerous scripts at the same time. However, I would suspect that HIPPA rules would not allow such a venture even if it would prove to be