MEDIA
Some docs face fraud inquiry
Post & Courier Senator looking into S.C. Medicaid prescription billing By Renee Dudley An influential U.S. senator is checking up on South Carolina doctors who have billed millions of dollars in prescriptions to the financially struggling, taxpayer-funded Medicaid program. U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, requested data from each state this year listing which doctors write the most prescriptions for eight common drugs covered by Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor. The reports were intended to \"ensure that taxpayer dollars are appropriately spent,\" Grassley wrote in a letter to state officials. The Palmetto State\'s report, released to [...]
Beleaguered doc was biggest Medicaid prescriber of pain ‘lollipop’
Journal Inquirer Beleaguered doc was biggest Medicaid prescriber of pain ‘lollipop’ By Don Michak A Berlin psychiatrist whose license to practice medicine was suspended last summer ranked among the biggest prescribers of eight pain and mental health medications — including federally controlled narcotic drugs — charged to the Medicaid program in Connecticut, state Department of Social Services records reveal. The documents show that Gerson M. Sternstein, a pain management specialist whose patients came from throughout the Hartford-New Britain area, wrote a total of 14,635 prescriptions in 2008 and 2009, for which Medicaid was billed more than $5.6 million. In several [...]
U.S. Senator scrutinizes top Oklahoma prescribers of pain, anti-psychotic medications
Oklahoman BY RANDY ELLIS A state agency has forwarded lists of the top 10 Oklahoma Medicaid prescribers of OxyContin, Xanax and six other pain and anti-psychotic medications to a U.S. senator concerned about fraud and abuse within the $317 billion federal program. The Oklahoma Health Care Authority terminated three physicians from participating in the federal Medicaid program and is reviewing the status of 10 others after their names showed up on top 10 lists of physicians writing the most prescriptions for frequently abused pain and mood altering medications, The Oklahoman has learned. U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter [...]
Top prescribers under Senate’s microscope
Star Tribune U.S. Sen Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, examined Minnesota doctors as part of his investigation into the overprescription of drugs, at great cost to Medicaid and Medicare. By JEREMY OLSON Minnesota doctors are again under the microscope of an influential U.S. senator from Iowa -- this time because of concerns that expensive medications are being overprescribed at great cost to the publicly funded Medicaid and Medicare programs. U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, notified federal authorities Wednesday that he found potential examples of overprescribing after requesting lists from states, including Minnesota, of doctors who issued the most prescriptions for antipsychotic and [...]
Editorial: Senator asks good questions about prescription drugs
The Herald-Dispatch Editorial: Senator asks good questions about prescription drugs He is a U.S. senator from another state, but we think Charles Grassley of Iowa is asking the right questions about a topic that affects our region in a big way. Recently, Grassley studied Medicare and Medicaid prescription rates from doctors around the country, and found several instances of doctors with very high prescription rates. Among the findings were: A Miami doctor who wrote nearly 97,000 prescriptions in 18 months for mental health drugs for Medicaid patients. An Ohio physician who wrote about 102,000 prescriptions in two years. A Texas [...]
Feds eye doctors’ prescriptions for drug fraud
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Andrew Conte One Pennsylvania doctor wrote prescriptions for more than $1 million worth of an antipsychotic drug. Another averaged 25 scrips a day for the antidepressant Xanax. In both cases, federal taxpayers footed the bill through the Medicaid program for the poor. Some doctors are so prolific with dispensing government-funded drugs that a U.S. Senate investigation recently determined investigators should look for evidence of fraud or drug abuse. \"Government needs to do more,\" Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote in an e-mail to the Tribune-Review. \"(Federal) programs can\'t spare a dime [...]
Senator Grassley Cites Connecticut Example Of Doctors Who Write Too Many Prescripstions
Hartford Courant (blog) By Matthew Sturdevant U.S. Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, cited a Connecticut example of doctors who write far more prescriptions than their peers, which he said is a national trend. The Oct. 20 letter to U.S. Health and Humans Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is about the over utilization of medical services as a factor of rising healthcare costs. Specifically, Grassley takes aim at doctors and medical providers who are writing a lot of prescriptions compared with their peers. \"In Connecticut, one provider consistently ranked as the top prescription writer across the full range of pharmaceuticals, totaling [...]
Psychiatrist Peter Gleason disciplined in three states. Not Florida
Health News Florida Patient-protection watchdogs decided this case didn't merit a bark; were they right? Carol Gentry, Editor July 16, 2010 Psychiatrist Peter Gleason In journalism, we write about things that happened, not about what didn't happen. So I have been flummoxed in how to approach the subject of Peter Gleason, a psychiatrist who was disciplined in three other states. Not Florida. In the Florida Department of Health medical lookup site, Gleason has a "clear, active" license with no pending complaints. He would be free to work here if he wanted, which could happen at any time, since he [...]
Psychiatrist Graham Craig has two-year sex romp with a patient almost four decades younger
ChronicleLive Psychiatrist struck off after sex with patient by Coreena Ford June 20, 2010 Psychiatrist Graham Craig A PSYCHIATRIST who had a two-year sex romp with a patient almost four decades younger than him has been struck off the medical register, the Sunday Sun can reveal. Dr Graham Craig was 61 when he had the affair with the 23-year-old woman – known as Patient A – who had been admitted to his clinic for severe depression. It is not the first time Dr Craig, now 72 – whose area of practice is Newcastle – had an “inappropriate relationship” with [...]
Prescription Pill-Popping By Far a Leading Killer as Florida’s Drug Deaths Spike 20%
FlaglerLive Prescription Pill-Popping By Far a Leading Killer as Florida’s Drug Deaths Spike 20% July 1, 2010 Oxycodone, the addictive prescription pain-killer also known by its Purdue Pharma brand name OxyContin, directly caused more deaths in Florida in 2009 than cocaine, heroin and morphine combined. Prescription drugs as a whole are killing far more Floridians than illegal drugs, with some 8,600 deaths last year involving at least one prescription drug, according to an annual report released today by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission. That’s 5 percent of all deaths in Florida in 2009, when 171,300 people died in the state. [...]