725 physicians were identified as having been prosecuted or sanctioned for such violations during the eight-year timeframe, or only about 0.1 percent of nearly 700,000 practicing patient care physicians in the United States.
Most of the patient care doctors identified in such cases were primary care physicians rather than specialists in other fields, including pain medicine.
In 2005 and 2006, the Drug Enforcement Administration reported having investigated an average of only four to five doctors per state each year for possible criminal offenses connected with improper prescribing or handling of pain medications.