And 93% of those prescriptions... 
are paid for by Senator Byrd's earmarks.
Posted on 02/06/2008 4:34:21 PM PST by Libloather
West Virginia replaces Tennessee as No. 1 in prescription drug use
by The Associated Press
Wednesday February 6, 2008
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- A report shows Tennessee has lost the top national ranking of per capita prescription drug use to West Virginia.
The report by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee shows West Virginia took the lead, with 17.4 prescriptions per capita in 2006, compared with 16.9 prescriptions per person in Tennessee.
The report uses data from drug company Novartis' most recent Pharmacy Benefit Report.
Tennessee's rates dropped 6.6 percent from 18.1 prescriptions in 2004. The drug use rates remain well above the national average, which was 11.8 prescriptions per capita in 2006, the Blue Cross report shows.
Terry Shea, director of pharmacy management for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, said older, sicker and less educated populations tend to use more prescriptions.
West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Experts attribute Tennessee's drop to efforts to curb the rate of drug use, particularly among the TennCare population.
The study also showed that growth in average per capita spending on prescriptions in Tennessee increased by 7.2 percent in 2006 to $1,272.94, while national spending grew 18.8 percent to $948.72.
In 2005, TennCare, the state's expanded Medicaid program, began limiting prescriptions for most adults to five per month, with exceptions for some medications, including treatments for chemotherapy and immunosuppression therapy, said David Beshara, TennCare chief pharmacy officer.
Officials said the painkiller hydrocodone is the No. 1 drug by volume that TennCare funds.
Tennessee now is on the right track, Beshara said.
"The state has kind of marshaled all the different resources together from all the sectors and ... it's beginning to pay off,'' he said.
In 2006, changes in a court settlement between TennCare enrollee advocates and state officials allowed TennCare to require prior authorizations for certain drugs, which has cut usage, said Bill Cecil, health policy research director for Blue Cross.
In 2005, TennCare paid for about 1.35 million hydrocodone prescriptions and in 2006 less than 610,000. Part of that decrease stemmed from Medicare's Part D prescription drug benefit, Beshara said.
Russ Miller, senior vice president for the Tennessee Medical Association, said the physician's group is developing a program to combat misuse of addictive Schedule II drugs. The Tennessee Prescription Safety program will allow physicians and pharmacists to access a patient's prescription history with a swipe card that is distributed free of charge to the patient and compliant with privacy laws.
The program is scheduled to launch in Monroe County in May, Miller said.
The Tennessee Board of Pharmacy also recently started a controlled substance monitoring database.
Holy smokes! That's an average?
Probably all for free thanks to “Sheets” Byrd’s phederal pharmacy phreebiees.
Pretty soon instead of roads named after him, WV will have hundreds of “Robert Byrd Memorial Pharmacies”
And 93% of those prescriptions... are paid for by Senator Byrd's earmarks.
I expect drug use to increase in Jan 09.
I read the article and couldn’t quite figure out what the figured represented. Does that mean 17 different drugs (I’d have a hard time believing that), or say you take a certain Rx and have to get it refilled every month, would that count as 12 prescriptions?
Sheesh, and I haven’t been on prescription-anything since 1999.
I am 68 and I doubt if my total is 17!
Gadzooks! Here... 
have a beer!
I’ll have that beer!
parachuting all over the county!
Please! I’ll just jump once!
Remember that WV has a lower total population with a higher percentage of elderly then other states. So as usual percentages do not always tell the tale.
My wife is an ER nurse. Half her time is dealing with people faking symptoms to get pain meds. She dreads the days she works with the docs who get a reputation as "the candy-man". There is a whole industry of low income people supplementing their income by coming up with a plausible story for getting pain meds, then selling them.
The way we are having the wool pulled over our eyes by the growing underclass is unbelievable. The only thing worse is those who think the solution is to expand the program.
No prescription that I’ve ever taken was free or “state” paid.
It seems kindof an odd metric. Some medicines for chronic conditions have prescriptions which are re-issued every month - while others only annually or semi-annually.
I know when I go to the doctor for some things, I often get 3-4 prescriptions, the longest of which I take for no more than a total of 10 days, and the shortest for a couple of days.
ROTFLMAO!
But... but... we can’t have our little old ladies having to choose which prescription they need over any other? Perish the thought! We need free prescriptions for all, whatever they need! < /sarcasm>... (although I wouldn’t be surprised if Hillary or Obama actually would say something like that)
This is what universal health care gets you— people will take up these prescription drugs because they’re free (or cheap) and the TV tells them they need it. The result is a bunch of drugged up old coots. They need to think to themselves: “Do I really need to be medicating myself this heavily?”
Part of the health care crisis is the “unnecessary health care” crisis.
So much of WV these days is practically an outdoors old age home. Same goes for central PA.
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