Cracking Down on Pain Clinics Could Push Drug-Seeking Patients to Urgent Care

As pain clinics come under closer scrutiny amid efforts to stem the tide of opiate addiction across the country, patients who need (and those who are addicted to) prescription pain medications are looking for new avenues of securing drugs. In Tennessee, where two-thirds of pain clinics have been shut down, there’s concern that tens of thousands of patients will be knocking on the doors of community health resources to get new prescriptions—or, worse, turning to street dealers, possibly moving on to fentanyl or heroin. The fact that urgent care clinicians are unlikely to initiate prescriptions for chronic pain doesn’t mean patients won’t be making the request, of course. However, these challenges also present an opportunity for urgent care to help reverse the deadly trend. To ensure you’re prepared to help those patients, read The Potential Role of Urgent Care in Addressing the Opiate Epidemic in the JUCM archives.