Health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers in 2012, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control. But these medications carry with them a risk for addiction. Deaths tied to overdoses from painkillers rose to nearly 17,000 a year in the United States in 2012.
People addicted to painkillers will sometimes go to great lengths to continue using. While many physicians keep a close eye on these dangerous patterns, the emergency room has served as a loophole in some cases.
An NPR focused on this trend through the story of Kimberley Enyart. After a car accident, she became dependent on painkillers and moved from doctors to dentists in order to maintain the prescription flow. She even reportedly had teeth pulled in order to get more medication.
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“I would do anything, from saying I had a migraine to having side aches,” she said. “Most of the time, yeah, I walked out of the emergency room with a prescription.”
Because the emergency room has been a go-to spot for many addicts, some new protocols are being put in place in certain areas.
In the last few years, the ER has become a top destination for people seeking addictive prescription painkillers like Vicodin, Oxycodone, or Percocet. In response, hospitals in some states, including New Mexico, Texas and Wyoming, have developed tracking systems specifically tailored to the emergency room.
Bold red letters appear on patients’ electronic records when they’re flagged as abusers at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center’s ER, in Cheyenne, Wyo. But because of the fast pace of the ER and the constant turnaround, it’s not always easy to know when a doctor should look into potential addiction, especially if someone appears to be legitimately injured or ill.
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Withholding medication is a challenging decision for any one physician to make on the fly, so a panel has been put together at Cheyenne Regional to look closely at those who have been flagged, particularly people who come to the ER more than a few times a month.
Once the patients’ names are flagged, the hospital will send out certified letters telling them they will not be prescribed painkillers for anything other than a dire emergency.
Although hospitals have been able to reduce costs with the new protocols many addicts are uninsured, so it is a concern for some doctors as to how to best determine whether the patient really needs medication or not.
“If somebody is an abuser of Vicodin or one of these other medicines … if they break a leg or break an arm, they’re still going to need medicine to reduce their pain,” Dr. Alex Rosenau, past president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, told NPR.
Although this issue may be difficult to navigate, it has reached epidemic levels, according to the CDC. NPR reported that prescription drug overdoses killed 44 people, on average, every day in the United States in 2013.
Photo: Flickr user Charles Williams
