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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Fraud and abuse continue to dog Medicare’s popular prescription drug program despite a bevy of initiatives launched to prevent them, according to two new reports by the inspector general of Health and Human Services.
As ProPublica’s Charles Ornstein reports, the release follows the arrests of 44 pharmacy owners, doctors and others, who were accused last week of bilking the program, known as Part D.
Key takeaways from the reports:
- Questionable practices were found at 1,400 pharmacies, which collectively billed Medicare $2.3 billion in 2014.
- Between 2006 and 2014, Medicare’s spending on commonly abused opioids grew to $3.9 billion from $1.5 billion, a 156 percent increase — despite warnings about inappropriate use.
- New York, Los Angeles and Miami remain hotbeds for questionable prescribing, with far higher use of expensive drugs associated with fraud than other parts of the country.
- Recommended changes include requiring health plans to report potential fraud and abuse and restricting patients suspected of “doctor shopping.”
The full story is here: http://www.propublica.org/
More: Use our Prescriber Checkup app to look up doctors and see how their prescribing patterns compare to peers in the same specialty and state.
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