Feds targeting Indiana pill mill doctors, pharmacists
Scott County is a small .. abt 24 K population… fairly poor/low income county with two main cities … Scottsburg and Austin. The area has a lot of the residents on Medicaid. There are six pharmacies in the county 4 – Scottsburg and 2 – Austin… 3 independents and 3 chain stores. The three independents have been around for ever.. the newest opened some THREE DECADES ago.. With the three chains being WalMart, CVS and Jay-C Grocery (Div of Kroger). My money, is that they will try to shut down the indys and fine the crap out of the corporations. Isn’t it wonderful that the DEA determines where there is problems totally based on stats like the average Rxs per person.. Practicing medicine “by the numbers”… The county is abt 30 miles north of Louisville KY with a metro population of abt 1.6 million. It has been stated that the vast majority of these 160 new HIV + pts have a common DNA source of the HIV as well as HEP B & C . At first Gov Pence refused to implement a clean needle exchange program, but a few days later granted a 30 days program .. which was later extended to one year. Who believes that these substance abusers will not migrate to some of the adjacent counties.. where there is no free needle exchange program. Of course, it was just announced that Indiana was ready to match the number of pharmacy robberies for the entire 2014 period and when calculated on a per-capita basis.. Indiana has 12-13 times more pharmacies robberies than the second place state – California… Indiana is also in the top for the number of meth lab busts.
A recent spike in HIV cases throughout Indiana has federal prosecutors closely scrutinizing doctors and pharmacists who may be recklessly prescribing painkillers.
State officials confirm that more than 160 people have tested positive for HIV in southern Indiana this year. Healthcare officials speculate that drug abusers who graduate to heroin from painkillers are fueling the HIV epidemic. And the painkiller abuse is linked to some unscrupulous doctors and pharmacists.
“Really this has caught our attention,” U.S. Attorney Josh Minkler told CBS4. “We need to react immediately to this problem. Our resources are to go after the sources, and I think at least my studies have shown, we know where the prescription drugs come from.”
Minkler said some doctors are writing too many prescriptions, and some pharmacies are too willing to fill them. He said many of the controlled substances end up on the black market, which eventually leads to heroin use.
“It got the attention at the highest levels of the Department of Justice,” Minkler said. “And so I’ve looked into it. We have to take ownership of, at least in the United States Attorney’s Office, demand reduction.”
Three full-time agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and an assistant U.S. attorney are focusing on the Indiana problem, Minkler said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 109 painkiller prescriptions were written for every 100 people in Indiana in 2015. The national average was 82 prescriptions per 100 people. Click here to see that report.
“I was very surprised,” Minkler said. “I was not aware of the stats that show how often painkillers are prescribed in this state versus the rest of the country.”
Filed under: General Problems
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