Making doctors check patients' drug history could be simple way to reduce opioid epidemic

There's a simple way to reduce the opioid epidemic gripping the country, according to new Cornell University research: Make doctors check their patients' previous prescriptions.

The most significant response to the opioid epidemic comes from state governments. Nearly every state now has a database that tracks every prescription for opioids like OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin. Using these databases, doctors and pharmacists can retrieve a patient's history to decide whether they are an opioid abuser before prescribing them drugs.

Such databases reduce opioid abuse among Medicare recipients - but only when laws require doctors to consult them, according to a Cornell health care economist and her colleague. Their study refutes previous research suggesting the databases have no effect on opioid abuse. The paper is forthcoming in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

"The main issue is getting providers to change their prescribing behavior. The majority of opioids that people abuse start in the medical system as a legitimate prescription," said co-author Colleen Carey, assistant professor of policy analysis and management in the College of Human Ecology. Her co-author is IHPI member, Thomas Buchmueller of U-M's Business School.