WCRI: Boom in Physician Dispensing Fueling Surge in Drug Prices

By Michael Whiteley, Eastern Bureau ChiefDoctors are charging up to three times what pharmacies charge when they sell drugs out of their offices and the practice has grown to the point that nearly two-thirds of pharmaceutical spending in the Florida and Illinois workers' compensation systems went to physicians' offices, according to a report released Thursday by the Workers Compensation Research Institute.WCRI said the share of workers' compensation costs for physician-dispensed drugs in Illinois reached 63% of all injured workers' prescriptions filled as of March 2011 and grew...