Tennessee leads nation in painkiller prescription increase (medical, area)

[gary1958]

This is sad, so many abusing the system and making it harder on the ones that really need help. Makes me wonder how many impaired drivers are around me.

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=48229

[Robbied]

I think there is a good amount of methaamphetamines in the area as well. I know it is all over but when I read the local paper in a middle tennessee area, it seems like there is a greater amount of meth there than here in Fl.

[alleycat]

That story is dated August, but it's really based on old news. There was a lot of abuse under TennCare, which is one reason it had to be dismantled. TennCare has been replaced by CoverTennessee and CoverTennesseeKids.

One of the strangest things when it was TennCare would be that they could hire a van and drive a group of people to Nashville (TennCare paid for the van trip as a medical need), then the group would go to a doctor who would freely write prescriptions (TennCare paid for the doctor), then they would drive them back home, the people would get their prescriptions filled (TennCare paid for that), then the pill would be turned in to the people who arranged the trip and resold. And when they discovered this happening, what did they do? Almost nothing. TennCare had to follow Medicare rules, and couldn't throw someone off the rolls without a lot of paperwork.

I'm sure they're finding ways to abuse CoverTennessean too, but it couldn't be as bad as TennCare.