In an unprecedented move, a coalition of 45 public and private bodies and charities has pledged to transform the way patients are treated and drive down the use of anti-psychotic drugs. Experts have argued that the ‘chemical cosh’, recommended for short-term use to calm down people who are agitated, has been widely over-prescribed for dementia sufferers in an attempt to keep them quiet, particularly in care homes.
A Miami doctor wrote nearly 97,000 prescriptions in 18 months for mental health drugs. An Ohio physician wrote more than 100,000 prescriptions in two years. A Texas doctor wrote more than 14,000 prescriptions for the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. These alarmingly high prescriptions numbers for mental health drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid have prompted Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) to call for an investigation, the Associated Press reports.
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 narcotic medications in 2008 and 2009.
by John M Grohol, PsyD – Who were the top 50 psychiatrists in the U.S. paid by the top seven pharmaceutical companies? This past week, ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest, recently decided to answer that question by compiling a list of 384 physicians and health care providers who earned more than $100,000 total from one or more of the seven companies that have disclosed payments in 2009 and early 2010. We combed that list and found the top 50 psychiatry earners for the past two years (2009-2010).
“Under Louisiana’s Medical Assistance Program Integrity Law (MAPIL), anyone who attempted to defraud or cause false and misleading information to disseminate, you are subject to civil monetary fine,” says Morrow. According to the evidence, Janssen made some 27,000 phone sales calls to doctors and sent hundreds of “dear doctor letters” downplaying the diabetes link to Risperdal.