U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is asking for a federal investigation into the volume of poweful narcotic drugs that the government is paying for through Medicare and Medicaid.
Grassley's findings after reviewing government data submitted by individual states included a Miami doctor who wrote nearly 97,000 prescriptions in 18 months for Medicaid patients.
He wants the government to more closely scrutinize top prescribers of potent medications.
Arizona data on its top prescribers of powerful narcotics, submitted by the state's Medicaid program (the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, AHCCCS) includes:
• AHCCCS expenditures of about $5.4 million in 2009 for the top 10 AHCCCS prescribers of the powerful medications Alprazolam, Oxycodone, Oxycontin, Roxicodone, Xanax, Abilify, Geodon, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Risperdal and Risperidone
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•The largest AHCCCS expenditure on any single drug for the year was $1.3 million on Zyprexa, which is used to treat schizophrenia
•The highest number of prescriptions for a specific drug prescribed by one AHCCCS-contracted doctor in the 12 month period was from a medical provider who prescribed Risperidone 1,746 times for a total AHCCCS cost of $64,112.
