December 9, 2016      5:06 PM

So-called pill mills the focus of Texas Medical Board's sunset hearing

“I want to be sure we’re careful, that we’re really precise…What I don’t want to do is create a problem for a class of patients who aren’t doctor shopping.”

Lawmakers on Friday debated how to apply the scalpel to the physician practice of overprescribing highly addictive and dangerous drugs.

During a Sunset Commission meeting, both the Texas Medical Board and the Texas Department of Transportation were under review, with 120 speakers signed up to testify on the Texas Medical Board alone.

Early discussion at this morning’s meeting focused on a key recommendation of the Sunset report: unclear statutory authority over pain management clinics.

The concern is those clinics, or doctor practices, that are known informally as “pill mills.” While most of the members on Sunset Commission agreed the prescription monitoring program, or PMP, was part of the solution, the broader answer itself would be more complicated.

By Kimberly Reeves

Copyright December 09, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved