As overdoses soared, nearly 35 billion opioids -- half of distributed pills -- handled by 15 percent o
Source: Washington Post
As overdoses soared, nearly 35 billion opioids half of distributed pills handled by 15 percent of pharmacies
By Jenn Abelson, Andrew Ba Tran, Beth Reinhard and Aaron C. Davis August 12 at 10:00 AM
By the time Clinton County coroner Steve Talbott arrived at the scene of an overdose in southern Kentucky, the bottles of prescription pain pills usually had vanished. Friends and relatives of the dead rarely had answers to Talbotts questions: What kind of pills did they take and where did they come from?
A toxicology report often answered the first question. It was the second one that typically eluded Talbott. As overdose deaths soared, Talbott repeatedly called the state police, hoping they could identify the source of opioids poisoning his community, nestled in the foothills along the Tennessee border.
Now, with the release and analysis of a federal database tracking every pain pill sold in the United States at the height of the opioid crisis, one Clinton County pharmacy has come into sharp focus: Shearer Drug, located less than two miles from the funeral home that Talbott runs in Albany, Ky. The family-run pharmacy purchased nearly 6.8 million pills that contained hydrocodone and oxycodone from 2006 through 2012 enough to give 96 pills each year to every person in the county of roughly 10,000 residents.
During this period, Shearer Drug procured more opioid pills on a per capita basis per county than any other retail pharmacy in the United States, according to The Posts analysis of the federal database maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration. In 2012 alone, Shearer Drug bought over 1.1 million pain pills a 55 percent increase from 2006.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/the-opioid-crisis-15-percent-of-the-pharmacies-handled-nearly-half-of-the-pills/2019/08/12/b24bd4ee-b3c7-11e9-8f6c-7828e68cb15f_story.html
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Oh, wait, I used to take that much every 1.5 days.
Could've done it in a day, if I didn't drink, too.
Still, what astounding numbers!
Then again, if they were the only the pharmacy Rx'ing them for a wide radius, that's perhaps why they ordered so many.
Maybe, dunno. But it's certainly possible.
Delmette2.0
(4,168 posts)Before I retired I worked with the payment system for Medicaid. I know that for about 10 years every provider in the Medicaid system has to have a National Provider Identifer (NPI). Doctors, clinics, hospitals, pharmacy's, any one who prescribes or fulfills any kind of medical care has a NPI number. The NPI numbers are used everywhere on the claims submitted and paid.
It really can't difficult to track quickly who is suddenly prescribing more pain killers, who is filling the most prescriptions for pain killers. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services should have been on this years ago.
What I'm not sure of....
I haven't worked with Medicare payments, but I would think those providers have NPI numbers also. If a prescription isn't paid for by Medicaid, Medicare or insurance the pharmacy might have to provide their NPI when ordering from distribution centers.
Aristus
(66,442 posts)And by not gifting prescriptions to everyone who walks in the door asking for them, I get called every name in the book. That, I can deal with. What's harder to stomach is the accusations that I'm a bad medical provider who hates his patients and enjoys seeing them suffer. That's just a nasty thing to accuse us of...
happy feet
(871 posts)Delmette2.0
(4,168 posts)What I was trying to say is that there are some who are far above average in proscribing and could be easy to find.
I am not picking on all doctors. I have taken hydrocodone myself and so have my son's. I also had a brother in chronic neck pain for years after a car accident.
P.S. I didn't name you or any anyone.
Aristus
(66,442 posts)The people I'm talking about use some pretty abusive language, which you didn't do at all.