4/20/12

Dr. Feelgood

More people are dying each year due to prescription drugs than cocaine and heroin combined. These non-illicit drugs are costing us more than $400 billion a year for healthcare, loss of job wages, traffic accidents, and criminal system costs. We no longer have a problem with prescription drugs, we have an epidemic, namely with pain killers and muscle relaxants which are considered palliative drugs -- they relieve or sooth symptoms of a disease or disorder without affecting a cure.

4/6/12

Crackdown on "Pill Mills"

The federal government is doing a very big push on "pill mill" opioid distribution centers, with a special emphasis on Florida. The investigators have even hit large legitimate companies like CVS and Walgreens, where a lot of people have transferred their prescriptions to since the mills are getting shut down.

Meanwhile, the sunshine state's year-old "pill mill" crackdown reports some staggering successes. I found it interesting that one of the main red flags indicative of a "pill mill" is paying for a large percentage of presciptions with cash verses healthcare cards.  This is a good example of Predictive Modeling being used to solve an issue.