John Dorschner
Miami Herald
December 16, 2009

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has written a biting letter to top government officials using the example of a Miami psychiatrist who writes more than 100 prescriptions a day to raise questions about what federal officials are doing to monitor over-utilization of healthcare services.

The letter does not mention Fernando Mendez-Villamil by name, but it cites documents from the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration about a prescriber who wrote 96,685 prescriptions from the last quarter of 2007 through the first quarter of 2009 for Medicaid patients.

AHCA records independently obtained by The Miami Herald indicate that is Mendez-Villamil, who wrote nearly twice as many prescriptions for mental health drugs as the No. 2 Medicaid prescriber in the state.

“ I note with alarm that the top Medicaid prescriber during that time wrote 96,685 prescriptions for mental health drugs,“ Grasley wrote. “That means that this physician wrote approximately 153 prescriptions each and every day, assuming he did not take vacations.”

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