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In Tennessee, Doctor-shopping practice was something very common in the last few years. Drug addicts mainly got prescriptions from various doctors which increased the pain medication epidemic in the region.
However, in the year 2012, when the Prescription Safety Act brought forward, significant declined was seen in the painkillers’ doctor shopping.
According to the Michael Warren, the Tennessee Department of Health’s director of maternal and child health, 50% decline has been seen in this practice.
This 2012 Prescription Safety Act utilized the technology and increased the database related to state’s prescription. When prescribing pain medications, doctors and pharmacists check the database to know whether the person has already taken the medication from somewhere else.
The state trained the pharmacists and doctors to trace out abusers.
According to the expert, there is still much to do to tackle this problem. In the last decade, increment in opioid painkillers prescriptions has made 69,000 Tennesseans addicted. In the region, painkiller overdose death rate was increased as compared with the cocaine and heroin death rate.