Patient Advocates Wonder if Opioid Restrictions Have Gone Too Far

As efforts intensify to combat the opioid epidemic, some are asking whether it’s becoming too difficult for patients to get needed pain medication. Doctors, concerned about increased scrutiny of their prescribing patterns, may be ditching pain patients altogether, some say. And in workers’ compensation, utilization review is sometimes abruptly cutting patients off opioids on which they’ve become dependent, according to others. “Since the push to combat prescription medication abuse has risen, so have the number of calls we have received from individuals expressing the...