Fla. bill filed to thwart doctor shopping; Ky. paper takes note, since many shoppers come from there

Florida state Rep. Kelly Skidmore has proposed a law to monitor prescriptions distributed in her state and close a pipeline that sees people travel to Florida to obtain pain killers to abuse and sell. "The lack of such a program has made Florida the place that people from 38 states that do have such programs go to get their drugs," reports Valarie Honeycutt Spears of the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky, from whence many of Florida's drug shoppers come.

Kentucky Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, a physician, wrote Florida House Speaker Larry Cretul on March 20, encouraging him to support Skidmore's bill. "Interstate issues remain because controlled substance abuse problems transcend state borders, thus increasing the likelihood of interstate doctor shopping in the 12 states without prescription monitoring programs," Mongiardo wrote. Skidmore says Florida has the top 25 doctors dispensing oxycodone in the United States and a report published by the Broward County grand jury said the number of South Florida pain clinics had doubled since August of last year.

Doctors in Kentucky say they have patients who travel, sometimes together in vans, to obtain large quantities of pain medications. Roger Browne, a Florida doctor who was convicted of taking part in a conspiracy to distribute oxycodone pillsm had a client list that included 500 people from six counties in Eastern Kentucky. He admitted at a plea hearing in November that he knew there was a high probability the pills would be distributed illegally in Kentucky. (Read more)