WCRI: Docs' Drug Sales Boosting Prescription Costs

By Michael Whiteley, Eastern Bureau ChiefFlorida doctors who are making direct sales of high-priced muscle relaxers and painkillers to injured workers have helped push drug costs to 38% above the median in a 16-state study, the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) reported.The Cambridge, Mass. research group last Wednesday issued another study in its "Benchmark" series of studies, this one analyzing prescription costs for Florida workplace injuries that occurred between October 2005 and September 2006.It concluded that Florida's "dispensing" physicians are charging two and three ...