Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Watch prescriptions for ‘commonly abused opioids.’

Since 2006, Medicare spending for commonly abused opioids has grown faster than spending for all Part D drugs. So says a new report from the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) entitled, “Questionable Billing and Geographic Hotspots Point to Potential Fraud and Abuse in Medicare Part D.”

The OIG report broke down the number of pharmacies with questionable Medicare Part D billing in 2014 by measure:

Resources: To read the OIG report “Ensuring the Integrity of Medicare Part D,” go to http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-03-15-00180.pdf. To access the OIG report “Questionable Billing and Geographic Hotspots Point to Potential Fraud and Abuse in Medicare Part D,” visit http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-02-15-00190.pdf.