Everyone needs to be careful with narcotics. Please don't flirt with disaster. Pt. demands and urgency should not over-ride proper prescription habits and laws. Class II narcotics should never be prescribed without physically seeing the pt. Not only is it good practice, it's the law. Review your state and federal regulations. Post-dated scrips are not a good idea either, whether legal or not depending on your locale.
Review your state and federal narcotic license. Not only do they allow you prescribe certain narcotics, BUT YOU ARE REQUIRED TO SUSPECT, INVESTIGATE, AVOID, AND NOTIFY AUTHORITIES of atypical narcotic prescription events.
Please also remember, not only do you have a duty to do the best for your pts, you also have a duty to protect your local population from diverted narcotics. Kids dead with a narcotic prescription bottle with your name on it in their pocket isn't good. Many a doctor have lost their prescription license b/c they didn't pay attention or didn't act when the saw a problem.
For those of you not in the southeast, look what happened in Florida and North Carolina.
As a pain doc, I try to educate my follow docs so they don't get fitted with an government orange suit.
Nate
