The federal government is doing a very big push on “pill mill” opioid distribution centers, with a special emphasis on Florida. The investigators have even hit large legitimate companies like CVS and Walgreens, where a lot of people have transferred their prescriptions to since the mills are getting shut down.

Meanwhile, the sunshine state’s year-old “pill mill” crackdown reports some staggering successes. I found it interesting that one of the main red flags indicative of a “pill mill” is paying for a large percentage of presciptions with cash verses healthcare cards.  This is a good example of Predictive Modeling being used to solve an issue.

This is a serious problem, and it’s not going away anytime soon. More people are taking opioids unncessarily than are doing cocaine or other illegal drugs by a huge factor.  As healthcare and societal costs increase to handle the issues these addictions cause, even more attention will be paid to this epidemic.

Next week, the first-ever National RX Drug Abuse Summit will be held in Orlando, FL to discuss solutions for the opioid epidemic and Rising will be there.