In this case it looks like they are incentives for pain pills to be issued on both sides -- money maker for pharma and time saver for doctors (a third side -- convenience and feel good for the patient).

It is not as useful to find so-called bad actors but instead we should evaluate the medical system as a whole and put in safeguards to do less harm. Patients have generally too much influence on doctors for their treatment (otherwise why would direct to consumer marketing exist?), that doctors are not educating patients enough on the risks of narcotics and that pharma has $$ incentive to push medicine. That things like physical therapy and lifestyle changes will better deal with root causes than drugs that only address the symptom (but feel better and are easier to swallow). It's a recipe for a disaster.

I was in a motorcycle accident a few years ago and broke over 10 bones. The worst part of my recovery was kicking my addiction to narcotics. I did not understand what I was getting into and I was never given a path to get off them (not in a coherent way, not until I called to say I was going through withdrawals). This should not be.