People Taking Opioid Medications For Chronic Pain Have A Harder Time Finding Primary Care

People who take opioid medications for chronic pain may have a hard time finding a new primary care clinic that will take them as a patient if they need one. According to a "secret shopper" study of hundreds of clinics across the country, approximately 42.7% of health care clinics (193 clinics) taking new consumers said they were not willing to schedule an appointment for a person wanting to receive opioid medications.

In conducting the research, health care clinics were given one of two scenarios - either the individual’s previous health care professional had retired or the individual’s previous . . .