Prescription opioid overdose cases might often be linked to potentially inappropriate prescriptions being disseminated, according to recent research.

Physician policy researcher Adam J. Rose, MD, MSc of the RAND Corporation looked at more than 3 million adult patients who received a prescription for opioids between 2011 and 2015. Patients with cancer were not included in the study, which was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

According to MD Magazine, Rose and his team identified six types of risky opioid prescriptions, including:

• A morphine equivalent dose equal to or greater than 100 mg per day in three months
• Overlapping prescriptions of an opioid and benzodiazepine in three months
• Obtaining opioid prescriptions from four or more prescribers within any quarter
• Obtaining opioid prescriptions from four or more pharmacies in any quarter
• Cash used to buy prescription opioids on three or more purchases
• Receiving opioids in three consecutive months without an accompanying documented diagnosis of pain.

The factors linked with a non-fatal overdose included the lack of pain diagnosis and a high-dose prescription of opioids.

The benzodiazepine prescription in addition to the opioid prescription was linked with the outcome of a fatal overdose. Benzodiazepine is a class of drugs primarily used to treat anxiety and include Librium, Valium, Lorazepam, and others.

Rose’s research determined that all-cause mortality was associated with both the lack of a documented diagnosis of pain and to high-dose opioids.

Prescription Opioid Overdose Epidemic

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the opioid epidemic rose as a result of pharmaceutical companies falsely reassuring the medical community in the 1990s that opioid pain relievers were not addictive. As a result, doctors prescribed more opioid pain relievers to people suffering from chronic pain. It soon became clear that opioids could be dangerously addictive, leading to the prescription opioid overdose epidemic.

The 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicated 116 people died in the U.S. every day from opioid-related drug overdoses. More than 17,000 people died in 2016 due to a prescription opioid overdose. An additional 15,000 died after overdosing on heroin, and more than 19,000 people died after overdosing on synthetic opioids other than methadone, a drug commonly used to help people withdraw from heroin use.

Nearly 11.5 million people misused prescription opioids at an economic cost of $504 billion.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sees the prescription opioid overdose epidemic in three waves. The first wave started in the 1990s when overdose deaths linked to natural and semi-synthetic opioids and methadone increased due to the increase of prescriptions.

The CDC calls 2010 the second wave because of a huge increase in heroin overdose deaths.

The CDC indicates the third wave started in 2013 when illicitly-manufactured fentanyl (IMF) appeared on the market, resulting in an increase in overdose fatalities linked to synthetic opioids. Today, IMF might appear mixed with heroin, counterfeit pills or cocaine.

Fentanyl is highly addictive and is 100 times more potent than morphine. Fentanyl is usually only prescribed to treat severe pain from terminal cancer. A toxicology report of pop star Prince showed he died from what experts deemed an excessively high concentration of fentanyl. His 2016 death was deemed an accidental overdose.

In general, opioid overdose death lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.

If your loved died from an opioid overdose in the last three years from an addiction that began as a legal opioid prescription from his or her doctor, you may have a legal claim. Get help now by filling out the form on this page for a FREE case evaluation.

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