CVS bans doctors
September 2, 2013
AMERICAN pharmacy giant CVS
Caremark has announced it will no
longer do business with about 40
doctors around the country whom
it has found to be prescribing
painkillers at unusually high rates.
In an editorial published in the
New England Journal of Medicines,
the company cited a huge increase
in deaths due to overdose, which
is now the second biggest cause of
accidental death in the USA.
The editorial says there are
manifold causes of abuse, but
that in particular “inappropriate
prescribing has grown”.
“The worst form of such
prescribing occurs in so-called
pill mills, where fully licensed
physicians with valid Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA)
numbers write prescriptions that
provide large quantities of powerful
analgesics to individual patients.”
Because it’s a chain pharmacy,
CVS is able to aggregate
information across its outlets, and
a recent program has identified
particular problem prescribers,
with the company no longer filling
prescriptions from the doctors.
The move follows identification
by the DEA of pharmaceutical
distributors and chain pharmacies
as “part of the problem,
encouraging our industry to
develop new programs to reduce
inappropriate use,” CVS said.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 02 Sep 13To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 02 Sep 13
