The problem is many primary care doctors are also acting in the mold of a pain doctor.

The way a primary care doctor keeps records is not as thorough as a pain doctor. Because of this, the DEA/DoJ can easily build a case against a doctor for having NO reason to prescribe. It doesn't matter how legitimate it was. No records or bad recording keeping is what is crucifying many of these doctors.

This also means many of them will need to limit the number of pain patients they take on, and be very very in depth with them.

I.E. A doctor has a patient they are prescribing and they don't drug test, they don't get updated imaging, they don't annotate visits, they don't inquire about the patient's life, history, etc. So its easy for the DEAto say, "you don't care about your patients, your just a drug dealer with a doctorate!"

Doctors need to hire "compliance" officers who make sure the doctor is taking correct, thorough, notes, tests, and visits with their opioid patients. It also relieves some of their responsibility onto the compliance team. And the cost can be spread through insurance charges to help offset it.

They need to document document document. Every time the patient comes in a pain scale and questionnaire should be given, a mental health questionnaire, including questions about how the medication is or isn't effective and side effects noticed.

They also need to hire a lawyer who does medical/medicine related law and together with a compliance team, create a compliance profile. Along with the doctor creating a patient profile during the first couple of sessions tailored to the patient.

This will give both the doctors and pain patients some room to breath.