United States Senate Focuses on Opioids

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, along with 10 of his Republican Committee colleagues, recently called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to increase safeguards against opioid fraud. In the letter, the senators request information about HHS’ measures to prevent opioid abuse among Medicare Part D providers and beneficiaries. The letter requests details regarding the HHS Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) report issued last July, which found that one in three Medicare Part D beneficiaries received a prescription opioid in 2016 – as many as 500,000 of those beneficiaries were receiving high amounts of opioids and nearly 90,000 beneficiaries were deemed to be at serious risk. The report also identified roughly 400 prescribers with questionable opioid prescription patterns for those beneficiaries at serious risk. The senators requested additional information of HHS regarding the OIG’s findings, including information on the most prevalent opioid related fraud schemes identified in the report; prevention efforts HHS intends to undertake in the wake of these findings; along with a request for specific congressional recommendations as to additional authority that may be needed to protect beneficiaries and prevent fraud and abuse of opioids. The senators also request further detail regarding the 400 prescribers with questionable opioid prescription patterns and the subsequent actions HHS intends to take to follow-up with these prescribers. Fi...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs