Pain killers like these could be affected if a tracking database is put in place. Federal officials and advocates both want to require doctors to use pill-tracking databases to curb painkiller abuse.Tennessee’s effort to control painkiller medication abuse is winning praise nationally, although some local doctors worry the crackdown on so-called pill mills may make it harder for those who legitimately need pain medication to get their drugs.
In a report issued Monday in conjunction with the National RX Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit, meeting this week in Atlanta, the nonprofit group Shatterproof, which has been urging state governments to get tougher on prescription drug abuse, praised Tennessee as one of the states heading in the right direction.
Faced with one of the highest rates of painkiller use in the nation, Tennessee passed the Prescription Safety Act of 2012 to require all doctors who prescribe painkillers to register with the state. As of January, they are required to enter all prescriptions for opioids such as Vicodin, OxyContin or Percocet into the database.
With the database in place, doctors can check its records before writing a painkiller prescription to see if their patient is already getting the drug from another physician, one trick addicts use to obtain the drugs illegally.
According to the Shatterproof report, Tennessee reduced the overall number of painkiller prescriptions by 7 percent between 2013 and 2014. Each percent reduction in prescriptions should result in a corresponding 1 percent decline in overdose deaths, the group reported.