Medicalfag here. This is not new. The feds and the state authorities have been warning us about these prescriptions for a long time. They are seriously clamping down. The addiction problems out there are very bad. Many clinicians will not write for narcotics anymore because these days its just not worth the hassle.
If you are a provider who is writing for a lot of narcs they watch you, but as long as what you are doing is appropriate they're not going to bust you. They do keep sending you annoying letters and emails encouraging you to cut down on how much you're prescribing though.
There are plenty of legit pain management practices still in operation, but even many of those docs are stepping back now because of more and more and more regulations and restrictions. The states have databases that record and track every narcotic prescription. Once a patient receives a certain amount of narcs within a month they get flagged, and if they try to doctor shop or fill multiple scripts the pharmacies simply will not give them the drugs.
If you are a provider who is writing inappropriately they usually fire off a warning letter to you. After that, if you keep it up they may put restrictions on your license so that you can no longer prescribe certain controlled medications or can only prescribe a very limited amount of them. If you are egregiously ignoring the safety protocols then they may yank your license. You will get likely busted only if you are doing something blatantly illegal.
Most of the clinicians who are getting busted are being busted because of fraud…often Medicaid/Medicare fraud. That happens quite a bit in my state. It is very easy to rip off the CMS if you are very smart and so inclined. That is why so many of them do it. But they eventually make mistakes or get too greedy when they see the easy money, and they get caught when the audits are done.