North Carolina Medical Board Calls Attention to Prescription Drug Overdoses

Across Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Gaston, Cleveland, Union and Anson counties, 134 people died from opioid overdoses in 2015.

The North Carolina Medical Board is trying to stop addiction and prevent overdoses by analyzing doctors’ prescribing records and the steps they take to prevent and identify patient misuse of painkillers.

“It is critical that we look at it because even one overdose or narcotic opioid poisoning is too many,” said Dr. Mark Romanoff (the Charlotte physician on the committee that created the new investigative program).

The medical board is investigating 12 doctors who are considered high-dose prescribers and 60 physicians who had two or more patient deaths from opioid poisonings between July 2014 and June 2015.

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