The 60 Minutes piece on opioids was an eye opener for me

[Lee-Lee]

32. unfortunately it is not that simple.

Doctors, especially ER docs, have to be very guarded about it for many reasons, big picture and little picture.

First is that there are only so many beds and staff in an ER. If even a whiff gets out in that community of users that the doctor working that day is an easy mark to get some pills the ER will be flooded with "patients". I've seen it working off duty security in an ER, a temp doc was working and one of the regular seekers managed to get a script, within an hour a dozen more regulars were all in the waiting room all with the same symptoms that had just worked for the first one. This in a rural ER that only had 6 beds and had plenty of real patients that there people were now delaying from getting care.

That affects everyone. That means people with real issues wait hours more before being seen and get less time with the doctors and nurses. That reduces the quality of care for every tine.

On top of that your drug seekers are always uninsured or Medicaid patients, that means that your not only wasting your time and limited resources providing a totally unneeded service but the hospital is going to take a loss on it too. Add that up dozens or more times a day and it's a huge hit, especially in rural areas.

Then add in the personal frustration of overworked doctors who have legitimate patients in legitimate need waiting while they have to go through the paces with someone clearly lying to them.

Then add in that the DEA can and will revoke the certification to write prescriptions if they decide they have been providing too many drugs that end up for sale on the street, and a doc with no DEA number is unemployable.