A set of new studies found that state and federal policies intended to keep doctors from overprescribing painkillers can sometimes have unintended consequences.
One study showed that rules requiring doctors to check a database that would reveal patients at risk of opioid misuse had no effect on prescribing practices but did consume a significant amount of time.
The other study showed that surgeons prescribed even more hydrocodone immediately after surgery following the implementation of rules that were set to make it harder for patients to refill prescriptions for the painkiller.
In an August 22, 2018 Boston Globe article, Michael Barnett, an assistant professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said the findings may reflect the fact that doctors tend to put the needs of patients first.
“Clinician behavior is harder to predict, when you put these kinds of limits on it, than we’d like to think,” said Barnett, who was not involved with the research. “Regardless of the law you put in place, physicians are going to respond to what patients need…We need to ask a harder question: How do we influence health care decisions?”
Read the Boston Globe article: Rules to control opioid prescribing don’t always work as intended, studies say