PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE | BY RICH LORD AND MAIA SILBER | 08.12.16
Thousands of medical professionals have quietly signed away their rights to prescribe narcotics — and, in many cases, their careers — in recent years in a little-discussed part of the federal crackdown on prescribing that has some doctors’ advocates crying foul.
From 2011 to 2015, the Drug Enforcement Administration accepted the surrender of 3,679 prescribing licenses nationwide, and revoked another 99, according to the agency’s response this week to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In Pennsylvania during that time, the DEA accepted the surrender of 148 prescribing licenses — typically held by doctors, dentists, veterinarians and nurse practitioners — and revoked one such license.