Medicare Monitoring Doctors’ Prescribing Patterns
Posted by azdrugrehabctr on December 31, 2014 under Prescription Drugs | 
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Medicare’s Part D data provides transparency in finding doctors who prescribe controlled substances most frequently. Medicare has started to use prescribing data to identify potentially problematic doctors. Beginning in mid-2015, Medicare will have the authority to remove doctors from the program if they prescribe in abusive ways.
“It’s a real area of concern for us,” said Shantanu Agrawal, director of the Center for Program Integrity within the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
In 2012, 12 of Medicare’s top 20 prescribers of highly addictive Schedule 2 drugs such as oxycodone, fentanyl, morphine and Ritalin faced disciplinary actions by their state medical boards. Some even faced criminal charges related to their medical practices. Because of their risk of abuse and dependence, Schedule 2 drugs require written prescriptions and cannot be refilled.
The data from Pro Publica’s analysis shows the upward trend line for prescriptions of controlled substances: 269 providers wrote at least 3,000 prescriptions for Schedule 2 drugs. Florida led the country with 52 providers, followed by Tennessee with 25.
In September, Medicare sent more than 750 letters to doctors who prescribed far more Schedule 2 drugs compared to others in their medical specialty and state. Officials hope the initiative will cause doctors to examine their prescribing and make changes.
“Simply being an outlier doesn’t establish that you’re doing something wrong,” said Agrawal. “What we are trying to do is give physicians the ability to assess themselves, given their comparative data.”
Medicare’s drug program, known as Part D, covers about 38 million seniors and disabled people and pays for more than one of every four prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. Concerns about oversight of controlled substances date back to at least 2011,when the Government Accountability Office highlighted abuse of opioids in Part D and called on Medicare to take action.
