In the latest bid to stem the opioid epidemic, investigators at the Department of Health and Human Services have identified excessive prescribing patterns in Medicare Part D involving hundreds of doctors and plan to work with law enforcement authorities to curtail the practice.
In a new report, the HHS Office of Inspector General found that 401 prescribers last year wrote more than 256,200 prescriptions for nearly 90,000 Part D beneficiaries who were deemed to be at serious risk because they received “extreme” amounts of opioids or appeared to be doctor shopping.
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Why would anyone intentionally block access to any important information about this epidemic. It should be made available to the public without registration of membership requirements. Placing restrictions on access to “educational material” that resides in a presumably reliable source only has the affect of raising all kinds of questions and doubts about your purpose.
Ed, it would nice if we could have those 1/3 Part D recipients receiving opioids stratified into cancer patients and noncancer patients. Given the age of the population my guess that the 33% of elderly opioid users is overrepresented by cancer patients, which would make the 1/3 ratio a bit less alarming than it otherwise might seem.