Health care policy makers, providers, payers and the pharmaceutical industry have been battling the opioid abuse epidemic for years but the problem seems to be getting worse instead of better. Recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked prescription opioid (pain killers) abuse to nearly 23,000 deaths in 2013, four times the number of opioid-related deaths in 1999. There has also been a 300 percent increase in prescription opioid sales over that time, according to the CDC.