Senate Watchdog Targets High-Prescribing Medicaid Docs

Senate Watchdog Targets High-Prescribing Medicaid Docs

Jan 24th, 2012 | By Ken Kramer | Category: Child Drugging

U.S. Senator Grassley

ProPublica
Senate Watchdog Targets High-Prescribing Medicaid Docs
by Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber
Jan. 24, 2012

An influential U.S. senator is grilling officials in nearly three-dozen states, demanding to know how they are cracking down on physicians who prescribe massive amounts of potentially dangerous prescription drugs.

Iowa Republican Charles Grassley sent letters to 34 states Monday asking what steps they had taken to investigate doctors whose prescribing of antipsychotics, anti-anxiety drugs and painkillers to Medicaid patients far exceeds that of their peers.

The request is a follow-up to a 2010 letter Grassley sent all states that requested statistics on top prescribers of these drugs.  FULL STORY