Readers of the
Anesthesia & Pain Coder’s Pink Sheet know that prescribing narcotics might put them on an auditor’s radar. Now there’s one way prescribers can tell they are above average when it comes to writing scripts for narcotics: CVS writes to ask what’s up with that prescription pattern.
But prescribers also can take heart from
the NBC report about CVS’ plan. Of the several dozen prescribers CVS identified as being outliers, CVS only cut off 36 doctors and other prescribers.
“CVS asked 42 providers for more details about their prescribing habits. Six of those 42 gave what CVS said were legitimate reasons for the high volume of prescriptions; for instance, being medical director at a hospice prescribing painkillers.”
CVS says it will no longer fill prescriptions written by the 36 excluded providers.
While CVS didn’t provide a lot of detail – for example, whether it has passed information about high prescribers to law enforcement – the report gives an idea of what it takes to be an outlier: “…one ‘outlier prescriber’ in the field of preventive medicine was prescribing on average more than 44,000 doses of high-risk drugs, compared with 662 for similar providers.”
Yes, that sort of difference will raise a red flag or two.