Tag: doctor shopping
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Cheaper heroin showing up in Eastern Kentucky as crackdown on pain pills makes that trade less attractive
About 60 grams of heroin, worth about$8,000. (AP photo) It was only few months ago that Northern Kentucky law enforcement officers and substance abuse clinics began expressing grave concern that...
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Medical licensure board changing rules to focus more on painkillers; fewer urine tests for patients, fewer reports for doctors
Patients in long-term treatment with controlled substances won’t have to have their urine tested for drugs unless they are on painkillers, and doctors will have wide discretion over how often...
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Covington police chief: New prescription-drug law has unintended consequence of encouraging pain pill addicts to use heroin, commit crimes
Black tar heroin Kentucky’s new prescription drug law may be having its desired effect of taking prescription painkillers off the streets, but could be forcing those very same addicts into...
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Pill-mill bill causing problems for patients who have long-term prescriptions: expensive drug-screening tests
In July, Kentucky started making long-time holders of certain controlled-substances prescriptions submit to urine tests to determine if they were actually taking the drugs, rather than selling them. Because insurance companies...
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Doctor complaints about bill aimed at reducing prescription drug abuse largely based on misconceptions, health officials say
State health officials say doctors’ complaints about House Bill 1, which cracks down on pill mills and doctors who supply the illegal prescription pill trade, result from misunderstandings and misconceptions about the...
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Pikeville newspaper spotlights local doctors and pharmacists charged in prescription pain-pill epidemic, forecasts more action
The Appalachian News-Express, the thrice-weekly newspaper in Pikeville, has turned the spotlight on Pike County physicians and pharmacists who are aiding and abetting the abuse of prescription painkillers. We have...
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State prescription drug databases like KASPER cut back doctor shopping and drug abuse, new study shows
Photo by iStockphoto Research from the University of North Carolina indicates drug databases like the Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting system do reduce doctor shopping and change prescribing behavior....
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Major newspapers publish reflections, reactions and details (including videos) on new law that will fight ‘pill mills’
Reflections on the new law to fight “pill mills” are in both of Kentucky’s major metropolitan newspapers today. The Courier-Journal, which rightly takes partial credit for focusing attention on the...
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Beshear OKs prescription bill, telling pill mills, ‘Get out of this state’
Saying it couldn’t get to his desk quickly enough, Gov. Steve Beshear signed a bill aimed at curbing prescription drug abuse in celebration today, warning so-called pill mills to “Get...
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Pill-mill bill passes; attorney general won’t get drug-monitoring system but narcotic-prescribing doctors will have to use it
House Speaker Greg Stumbo, center, walkswith House budget committee chair RickRand and House Majority Floor LeaderRocky Adkins. (Courier-Journal photo). Legislators have sent Gov. Steve Beshear a bill to curb prescription...