VA prescribes opiates to patients not seen

Report: VA prescribes opiates to patients not seen
San Francisco Gate
Aaron Glantz, Center for Investigative Reporting
December 2, 2013

Doctors at the San Francisco VA Medical Center regularly renewed prescriptions for highly addictive narcotic painkillers for veterans they had never seen, according to a new report by the Department of Veterans Affairs' inspector general.

The report also documented seven cases of opiate overdose among patients at the hospital and determined that doctors "did not consistently monitor patients for misuse."

The auditor's review comes at a time of heightened scrutiny of the VA's painkiller prescription practices.

In September, the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that VA prescriptions for four opiates - hydrocodone, oxycodone, methadone and morphine - surged 270 percent from 2001 to 2012. That far outpaced the increase in the number of VA patients and contributed to a fatal overdose rate that the agency's researchers put at nearly double the national average.
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