Prescriptions

In wooing a doctor, even a single meal makes a difference.

When used as a pain reliever, methadone is especially likely to cause unintentional overdoses.

New research finds presenting them with actual numbers can change their behavior.

The DEA's rule change allows other health-care professionals aside from just doctors to prescribe buprenorphine, an effective—but potentially addictive—treatment.

A new report shows rising costs for prescription drugs and emergency room visits.

New research finds a majority of opioids prescriptions came from office-based doctors, not emergency departments.

American medical institutions created the opioid crisis. The VA is showing how the establishment can help make amends.

A new study reports doctors in at least one hospital were prescribing far more pills than patients used.

New data on drug and device company payments to doctors largely excludes nurse practitioners and physician assistants, though they play an ever-larger role in health care. One advanced-practice nurse pleaded guilty last month to taking drug company kickbacks.

Medicare has increased oversight of its prescription drug program but many holes remain, allowing fraud and abuse to proliferate. Questionable practices were found at 1,400 pharmacies, which collectively billed Medicare $2.3 billion in 2014.

The move follows an investigation showing that Medicare did little to find dangerous prescribing by doctors to seniors and the disabled. It is also part of the government’s new push to bring transparency to taxpayer-supported medical care.

As states crack down hard on pain prescriptions, some are seeing a resurgence in abuse of the harder stuff.

Two secretaries in a doctor’s office have pleaded guilty and a pharmacy owner faces charges in a scam that Medicare allowed to thrive for more than two years.

New legislation in Tennessee has implications much wider than the use of illegal drugs by pregnant mothers-to-be.

A new report finds that more than half of insurance companies in Medicare’s drug program haven’t reported fraud cases to the government. The findings echo an earlier investigation that found fraud flourishing in the program.

Action follows ProPublica’s investigative series detailing inappropriate and wasteful prescribing and fraud in the nation’s biggest prescription drug program.

The long list of medications on Joyce Heap’s insurance forms didn’t look right. It turns out they weren’t—and Medicare didn’t seem to care.

The failure to track doctors who shun cheaper generics racks up huge costs for taxpayers in Medicare Part D, which fills one of every four U.S. prescriptions.

With billions in potential savings for Medicare at stake, we asked drug experts and practitioners alike why more doctors don’t recommend generics when they can.

Researchers find that a higher proportion of seniors are prescribed antidepressants, dementia drugs, and other medications in some parts of the country than others.