ProPublica’s Tracy Weber, Charles Ornstein and Jennifer LaFleur, in an analysis of Medicare prescription records, found that “some doctors and other health professionals across the country prescribe large quantities of drugs that are potentially harmful, disorienting or addictive,” with no attempt by the federal government to monitor or deter the practices.
“… officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services say the job of monitoring prescribing falls to the private health plans that administer the program, not the government.”
CMS officials say Congress never intended for the agency to monitor prescriptions and never gave it authority to do so, though they could not cite the provision in the law that limits its oversight ability.
In fact, “the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services has repeatedly criticized CMS for its failure to police the [prescrition] program, known as Part D.”
The story, also published in The Washington Post, was done using data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and “makes public for the first time the prescribing practices and identities of doctors and other health-care providers.”
A sidebar explains the data the reporters received from CMS and how they analyzed it.
The Part D records detail 1.1 billion claims in 2010 alone, including prescriptions and refills dispensed. ProPublica has created an online tool, Prescriber Checkup, to allow anyone to search for individual providers and see which drugs they prescribe.
For reporters interested in localizing the story, ProPublica will host a reporters’ conference call on Tuesday, May 14 at 2 p.m. ET to walk journalists through the app and how best to utilize it for their own reporting. Participants should sign up in advance.
