Events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism about health care and health in Kentucky
Gov. Steve Beshear has appointed a panel that will help identify the state’s health providers who are prescribing a suspicious amount of pain pills. The move is to help combat...
Prescription pain medicine overdoses now kill more people in the U.S. than heroin and cocaine combined, with 40 Americans dying every day from painkiller abuse. “This stems from a few...
At a time when Oxycontin abuse was rapidly increasing, the Drug Enforcement Agency had the power to slow production of the drug and perhaps stave off what is now a...
Though pill mills continue to be a big problem in Florida, where lax laws have fueled Kentucky’s prescription pill trade, there is evidence that the tides are slowly turning in...
If you thought Florida’s recent moves to stop the “pill pipeline” to Kentucky have worked, think again. “Cash-only clinics continue to operate throughout the Sunshine State, with doctors indiscriminately doling...
UPDATE, Oct. 14: Gov. Steve Beshear’s executive order did not create a slot for advance-practice registered nurses on the advisory council, which will have representatives appointed by Beshear and nominated...
By Tara Kaprowy and Al Cross Kentucky Health News LEXINGTON — Targeting what Gov. Steve Beshear called “drug dealers in white coats” is the goal of a new effort against...
Kentucky has formed a partnership with Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia to help fight prescription drug abuse, “even as questions linger over how well the state has used its own electronic monitoring...
Update, Aug. 29: The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure may not be tracking the prescribing practices of the state’s doctors, but that’s because it can’t, asserts a past president of...
If the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure doesn’t increase its oversight on doctors who prescribe excessive amounts of pain pills, House Speaker Greg Stumbo said Tuesday he’ll find an agency...