Re: Report on Medicare Cites Prescription Drug Abuse

Letter to the Editor
New York Times
letters@nytimes.com

October 5, 2011

Dear Editor:

On October 3rd, you reported that Medicare beneficiaries are using government subsidies to buy large quantities of frequently-abused drugs through multiple prescribers. This is alarming because a government program established to help the medically underserved is being mistreated and threatening not only the health of the beneficiaries, but also increasing costs to taxpayers. The fact that this abuse was able to play out—that patients were able to gain prescriptions drugs from several different sources—shows the system is lacking in organization. As a taxpayer, I believe that there needs to be a better system of keeping track of and limiting the number of prescription drugs paid for by Medicare. I think it is important to make prescription data and patient history available to all physicians that a patient sees. It is important to keep in mind that patients’ access to care should not be limited and thus limiting patients to one pharmacy would not be a feasible option. Implementing the use of electronic health records would reduce abuse and allow better coordination of care for patients.

Sincerely,
Sarah Azam
sarahfazam@berkeley.edu

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/health/policy/04medicare.html?_r=2&ref=health