Psychiatric prescriptions under state investigation, agency says
A Texas health agency has begun investigating more than three dozen healthcare providers who prescribed large quantities of powerful psychiatric drugs -- some to children -- after a U.S. senator raised questions about the medications.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission has referred three providers to the attorney general for criminal prosecution, state Health Commissioner Thomas Suehs wrote to Sen. Charles Grassley last month. Some have been excluded from the Texas Medicaid program, including one convicted in a criminal case and another accused of inappropriate billing and coding of hours related to patient services.
The state has referred another provider to the state's private Medicaid claims processor for "further recoupment." Two providers were referred to licensing boards for action. All of the providers were sent what the agency calls educational letters. The state didn't identify them.
In 2010, Grassley, R-Iowa, began investigating the use of addictive mental-health drugs that have the potential for fraud and abuse. In response to his inquiries, the state listed the top 10 prescribers of eight psychotropic and pain medications, although commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said Texas already had psychotropic medications under review.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/03/05/3786352/psychiatric-prescriptions-under.html#storylink=cpy
[font color=green]Does anybody need some Xanax or Lortab? Are taxpayers subsidizing the black market for these drugs? Very suspicious. One physician has written 27,000 prescriptions within a two-year period (an average of nearly 37 per day). The article notes that a high volume of the prescriptions are being written for toddlers, children and adolescents. 
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