For almost 25 years, the number of U.S. deaths caused by opioid overdose increased steadily until 2023. That year, the number of opioid overdose deaths began declining, with a decrease of 25% from March 2024 to March 2025, according to national data.
A number of factors contributed to the decrease, including strict reporting guidelines for prescribing physicians and a reluctance by many physicians to prescribe opioids. While a reduction in the number of overdose deaths is something to celebrate, the changes mean that many patients who legitimately need the drugs have difficulty obtaining them.
SureMed Compliance, a digital health company based in Mobile, is working to rightsize the issue by improving prescribing compliance.
“If a doctor is afraid of the compliance risks associated with prescribing opioids, that can hurt patients who need these medications,” says John Bowman, founder and CEO of SureMed Compliance, which is partially owned by Birmingham-based malpractice insurance company ProAssurance. “Our digital health solution delivers clinical insights that help influence safer prescribing decisions and mitigate risk to the patient and the healthcare provider.”
A veteran of the Coast Guard, Bowman founded SureMed Compliance to help fight the opioid overdose epidemic in 2015 in Florida. He eventually relocated the company to Alabama, where it has experienced extensive growth, expanding from eight to 40 employees in the past six months and expecting to hit the $10 million mark in the next 18 months, Bowman says.
In 2027, SureMed Compliance has plans to open a call center in Mobile or Birmingham that will employ 300 to 400 workers.
A Digital Compliance Solution
By participating in research through the University of Florida, Bowman and his team learned how difficult it is for physicians to determine a legitimate medical purpose for medications like opioids, when they only see patients for a 15-minute office visit. That understanding led SureMed Compliance to develop Perspectives in Care, a digital software solution that allows for brief, ongoing digital encounters with patients between doctor visits.
Doctors can require patients to interact with Perspectives in Care in order to maintain their prescriptions, and patients can comply through a mobile app or by agreeing to respond to regular text messages. These regular digital encounters, known as remote therapeutic monitoring, require patients to answer questions about their real-time health and behaviors. In addition to the data compiled through the monitoring questions, participating patients are required to complete monthly telemedicine visits with a SureMed Compliance clinical specialist.
“All the data from the remote monitoring and the telemedicine visit is scored, summarized and sent to the doctor to be included in the patient’s chart,” Bowman says. “When the patient sits down with their doctor, the doctor has a validated report based on what’s been going on with that patient over the past month. It provides the doctor with the clinical information needed to make an informed prescribing decision.”
For example, rather than prescribing the same dose for every patient, doctors who have solid clinical information through Perspectives in Care can take a more nuanced approach with each patient and provide a higher level of care, Bowman says. Because patient data from Perspectives in Care are sent directly to the doctors’ electronic medical records, patient progress, side effects and other information are always available to providers.
In addition to helping patients access the medications they need by documenting ongoing clinical information, Perspectives in Care also helps physicians mitigate the risks of prescribing drugs that are controlled substances. “Doctors know if their charts are ever pulled, those charts show that they have met the standard of care,” Bowman says.
Growing the Business in Alabama
After originally launching his business in Florida, Bowman relocated to Mobile and incorporated SureMed Compliance in Alabama, a move that he says has been highly beneficial for the company.
“As a business owner, I’ve learned that we can get things done faster in Alabama,” Bowman says. “There’s great support here for entrepreneurs, new businesses and new ideas. We’ve been well received by government, by the physicians’ board and other partners. The business community in Alabama is open to collaboration and sharing and people care about helping one another here, which has to happen for a new business to succeed.”
As a result, SureMed Compliance continues to grow and expand. While its Perspectives in Care product has been targeted mainly to pain management doctors and clinics, the company is preparing to launch a new platform in 2027 that’s geared to orthopedic surgeons. “It will be less focused on compliance and more focused on outcomes, as many orthopedic patients need controlled substances for pain for a limited time after surgery,” Bowman says.
Because SureMed Compliance has secured new contracts with several large medical clinics, the company foresees a need to continue expanding its remote monitoring staff. That’s why Bowman plans to open a new clinical specialist call center in 2027 to employ up to 400. The center, which he expects to be located in the Birmingham or Mobile area, will require staff members who have clinical experience, such as LPNs or RNs. “I really like the idea of keeping our operations in Alabama and adding more staff here,” Bowman says.
As the company grows, SureMed Compliance remains focused on its long-term goal of ending the overdose epidemic through prescribing that is based on more complete clinical data and informed clinicians who don’t have to worry about a fear of regulatory intervention.
Nancy Mann Jackson and Megan Smith are freelance contributors to Business Alabama. Jackson is based in Madison and Smith in Fairhope.
This article appears in the July 2026 issue of Business Alabama.
