Latest Drugs Headlines
All the headlines from our Drugs Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Express Scripts Has Plans to Deal with High Drug Prices
May 2 2016 // Express Scripts Holding Co. plans to introduce several benefit programs aimed at fighting high drug costs, including speeding up how quickly it moves insurer and employer customers to cheaper medicines after sudden price...
Employers Pay as 32% of Opioids Prescriptions Are Abused: Report
May 2 2016 // Nearly one out of every three (32 percent) opioid prescriptions, which are subsidized by America’s employers, is being abused, according to a report by a healthcare data and technology company. San Francisco-based...
Report: Healthy but Challenging Workers’ Compensation Market
May 2 2016 // The workers’ compensation market is healthy and robust. It’s both competitive and profitable. That’s good news for business owners, the insurance industry and injured workers. Beneath the positive news,...
West Virginia Doctor Gets 8 Years in Drug, Health Care Fraud Case
Apr 29 2016 // A pain clinic doctor in Beckley, West Virginia, has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison for illegally prescribing a controlled substance and submitting false health care claims. Dr. Jose Gordinho was sentenced...
Employers Pay As 32% of Opioid Prescriptions Are Abused: Report
Apr 21 2016 // Nearly one out of every three (32 percent) opioid prescriptions, which are subsidized by America’s employers, is being abused, according to a report by a healthcare data and technology company. San Francisco-based...
Why Employers Are Sending Retirees to Exchanges for Health Insurance
Apr 18 2016 // Planning for retirement is tough enough – and it gets even tougher when retirement benefits you expect to receive from an employer are changed on short notice. But a growing number of U.S. employers are capping their...
Injured Ohio Workers Receiving Fewer Opioid Prescriptions
Apr 18 2016 // The amount of opioids prescribed to injured Ohio workers has fallen significantly since the state’s insurance fund for injured workers created a pharmacy management program amid concerns about painkiller usage. Fewer...
Where Prescription Drug Prices Are Headed in U.S.
Apr 15 2016 // Spending on medicines increased by double digits for a second year in 2015 and reached $425 billion based on invoice prices. After adjusting for rebates and other price concessions by manufacturers, net spending was $310...
Parents Share Stories of Heroin’s Heavy Toll
Apr 14 2016 // Travis Mohr found sobriety after heroin came close to taking his life. Every year at the anniversary of the day he got clean, his parents hosted a celebration at their Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania, home to recognize...
Will Mandating Doctors Use Prescriber Databases Aid the Fight Against Opioid Deaths?
Apr 12 2016 // The U.S. is in the midst of an opioid crisis. Deaths from prescription painkiller overdoses have quadrupled since 1999. To combat the epidemic, 49 states and Washington, D.C., have built computer systems intended to detect...
New Jersey Hospital Cutting Down on Opioids in Emergency Room
Apr 11 2016 // Mark Rosenberg doesn’t need to go to his job as chairman of emergency medicine at New Jersey’s busiest emergency room to get a bracing insight into the mushrooming problem of opioid abuse. He can think of his...
Number of Opioid Prescriptions for Injured Ohio Workers Drops
Apr 10 2016 // The amount of opioids prescribed to injured Ohio workers has fallen significantly since the state’s insurance fund for injured workers created a pharmacy management program amid concerns about painkiller usage. Fewer...
Here’s What’s Happening with Drug Costs in Workers’ Compensation
Apr 7 2016 // Overall pharmacy spending increased 2.2 percent for U.S. workers’ compensation payers in 2015 due to higher drug prices, according to a report by benefit manager Express Scripts. That overall increase was a function...
Travelers Predictive Model Helps Injured Workers Avoid Chronic Pain, Opioid Use
Apr 5 2016 // The country’s largest workers’ compensation insurer said it has developed a model to predict the likelihood of an injured worker developing chronic pain. The model can them help the workers take steps to avoid...
AIA Applauds New Massachusetts Opioid Law
Apr 4 2016 // The American Insurance Association (AIA) lauded Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker for signing comprehensive opioid abuse legislation (H 4046) on March 14. Opioids are synthetic versions of opium-derived drugs, many of which...
Maine Bill Seeks Strong Limits on Opioid Prescriptions
Apr 1 2016 // The Maine Legislature is poised to pass a bill sponsored by Gov. Paul LePage that would put the state on the front line of a national movement to monitor and restrict opioid painkillers. The Republican’s bill would...
West Virginia Pharmacists Reduce Hydrocodone Dispensing by Nearly 13M
Mar 31 2016 // West Virginia pharmacies are dispensing significantly fewer doses of the state’s most popular prescription painkiller, hydrocodone. The number of prescribed hydrocodone products dropped by nearly 13 million tablets...
Hawaii Lawmakers: How Much Pot Is OK While Driving?
Mar 30 2016 // Hawaii lawmakers are asking how much marijuana a driver can safely consume before getting behind the wheel of a car. It’s an issue they want to tackle now that Hawaii is setting up medical marijuana dispensaries, so...
Most Doctors Overprescribe Opioids: National Safety Council
Mar 28 2016 // Most doctors– 99 percent — are prescribing highly addictive opioid medicines for longer than the three-day period recommended, according to a national survey. Twenty-three percent prescribe at least a...
FDA Extends Required Warnings to Short-Acting Opioid Painkillers
Mar 23 2016 // Short-acting opioid painkillers will carry strong new warnings under U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirements announced on Tuesday that will bring information about addiction and abuse in line with that on...
