Painful regulations

If you or a loved one have had to endure severe or chronic pain without proper medication because of Arkansas’ new opioid prescription regulations, please raise your hand. If you aren’t raising your hand, and it’s not due to pain, be prepared for the day when you or yours are prescribed a minuscule amount of pain medication or are denied a refill.

The new regulations appear to severely restrict how much medication can be prescribed, no matter the severity of the condition. It also appears that refills for these medications are not permitted. And probably worst is that doctors with a legitimate reason to prescribe these medications (i.e., trauma or other surgeons, orthopedists, oncologists) are the ones these regulations are most vigorously applied to.

It seems to me that some basic data analysis could identify cases like over-prescription and doctor-shopping. If such practices are not being flagged and investigated, then someone needs to be fired. The data exists and regulatory bodies should be using it. In my opinion, enhanced audit controls should be the focus of legislation and regulation instead of imposing onerous rules on doctors and their patients. Most doctors are very careful about prescribing these drugs and have been for at least the last 30 years.

Though concerns were voiced during deliberation, they were dismissed by the Legislature and others such as Asa Hutchinson and Leslie Rutledge. These nanny-state regulations can and probably will force patients to look to the streets or the Internet for relief. Hopefully we all understand how badly that can turn out, and changes can be made to fix these problems.

JOHN PERRIN

Little Rock