Government should oversee pill prescribers more vigilantly because overuse may hurt patients and cost taxpayers many millions of dollars, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley says.
Grassley, an Iowa Republican, questioned why certain practitioners prescribe far more drugs than others.
A Lincoln psychiatrist, for example, submitted close to three times as many Abilify prescriptions last year for Medicaid patients as the second-leading prescriber of the drug in Nebraska. Grassley said federal and state departments of health and human services have failed to pay adequate attention to the issue.
“We’ve learned that HHS really isn’t on top of the really extreme cases, and they don’t monitor the way they should,” he said in an interview.
Nebraska and Iowa health department representatives said their states do monitor Medicaid prescriptions. They cited computer systems that alert staffers to unusual billing practices, duplicate prescriptions for a patient and other potential problems.
Grassley’s investigation also has prompted some mental health practitioners to defend prescribing the expensive drugs, such as Abilify, Geodon and the extremely costly Risperdal injection. Those drugs are used primarily for people suffering with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses…. (By Rick Ruggles WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER)
