Doctors have long prescribed a muscle relaxant [cyclobenzaprine] to treat back strains, using five- or 10-milligram pills.
However, doctors who dispense the drugs directly to patients have recently embraced a new pill that contains 7.5 milligrams of the muscle relaxant. There is no evidence the pill works any better except for doctors and the middlemen. They can charge about ten times as much.
States have moved to crack down on so-called physician dispensing of prescription drugs. But doctors and companies have responded by exploiting loopholes in those rules.
Anew dosages of two older painkillers, tramadol and hydrocodone have also appeared. The study is financed by insurers and state governments.
By producing a novel dosage, a manufacturer could also create a new “average wholesale price” for that dose that bore little relation to existing forms of the drug and could be many times higher. Need some actions against the greed.
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