MORE DRUGS! –
Nov. 27, 2018 – Thousands of New Yorkers on Medicaid kept getting opioid prescriptions while simultaneously receiving similar drugs through addiction-treatment programs that didn’t check a crucial drug oversight tool. The failure resulted in potentially unnecessary or dangerous opioid prescriptions reaching 18,786 people in recovery, including nearly 500 who needed medical care due to drug overdoses. Of those, 12 people died in connection to the overdoses. Those are some of the findings of a striking report by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli about addiction treatment programs in New York. Auditors found many treatment programs were not checking a state-run database that monitors prescription drug use as required by law. The database is known as the Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing (I-STOP).
