Report on Medicare Cites Prescription Drug Abuse

To the Editor:

Your recent article about Medicare Cities Prescription Drug Abuse provides important insight into the affects of Part D of Medicare. Your article mentions that about 170,000 Medicare beneficiaries received prescriptions from five or more medical practitioners for 14 types of drugs that are frequently abused. Additionally, you mentioned that Dr. Donald M. Berwick should consider limiting patients who abuse prescription drugs to one prescriber or one pharmacy. However, officials were reluctant to make these changes since they did not want to jeopardize access. What alternative do you suggest? Could it be possible to increase the monthly premium of Medicare Part D in order to decrease the incentive of abuse? Since you also mention that even if an insurer detects misuse of prescription drugs a beneficiary can often get medications from another insurance company. Could another solution be to increase cooperation and access to information across insurance companies?

Sincerely,

Partow Zomorrodian

Berkeley, CA