[6] This may be because those declined opioid prescriptions turn to street drugs, whose potency and contaminants carry greater overdose risk.
[6] Prescription drug monitoring programs, or PDMPs, are an example of one initiative proposed to alleviate effects of the opioid crisis.
[14] One program that has been implemented in nine states is called the PDMP Electronic Health Records Integration and Interoperability Expansion, also known as PEHRIIE.
[20] Advertised as an "analytics tool and care management platform", the NarxCare software allows doctors to view data about a patient including how many pharmacies they have visited and the combinations of medication they are prescribed.
[9] Prescription Monitoring Programs are purported to offer economic benefits for the states who implement them by decreasing overall health care costs, lost productivity, and investigation times.
[5][6] Interestingly, an increase in heroin overdoses after PDMP implementation has been commonly reported, presumably as denial of prescription opioids sends patients in search of street drugs.
[26] Narx Scores have been criticized by researchers and patient advocates for the lack of transparency in the generation process as well as the potential for disparate treatment of women and minority groups.
[21] Writing in Duke Law Journal, Jennifer Oliva stated that "black-box algorithms" are used to generate the scores.