Every other country in the world has got the problem of painkillers figured out. So it can't be that complicated.
The opioid crisis was really defined by people with chronic long-term pain being given it for years at a time.
I don't think it's necessary to get into the details of how much pain is enough pain, how acute is acute enough, etc... because this is not a problem essentially anywhere else in the world -- and not because they thought really hard about it.
Subjectively, I got four wisdom teeth extracted in two sessions of two extractions each. Both times I only needed generic acetaminophen to manage the pain.
Perhaps an US surgeon have insisted on doing it all in one session, in which case I would have found the pain and discomfort intolerable and opioids would have made more sense.
In any case, they should probably figure out why their patients are in more pain than the patients of foreign surgeons and fix that. It could be something silly like them being less gentle during surgery because they are used to their patients being on opioids.