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Opioid Operators: How Surgeons Ply Patients With Painkillers

Even as awareness of the opioid crisis grew, prescribing habits of surgeons changed very little from 2011 to 2016, found a data analysis by Kaiser Health News and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Our team looked at surgeons whose Medicare patients filled a prescription for opioids within a week of having one of seven common surgical procedures. These averages may not reflect current prescribing practices. (See the methodology for more information.)

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