$100.00 Reward on America’s Top Psych Drug Prescriber

PsychSearch.net

Florida Files Complaint Against Top Prescriber

By Ken Kramer

February 13, 2013

The Florida Department of Health has filed a complaint against psychiatrist Fernando Mendez-Villamil, arguably America’s most prolific prescriber of psych drugs. He wrote $43 million worth of prescriptions in a 6 year period – about 153 prescriptions every day, paid for by Medicaid – your tax dollars.

According to the complaint, Mendez-Villamil prescribed psych drugs to patients identified only as “AT”, “FB”, and “WS” in inappropriate quantities or combinations. For example, Mendez-Villamil treated “AT” from age 3 to 8, “diagnosing” him with “ADHD” although there was no justification for this diagnosis. At any given time “AT” was on up to 3 different drugs. Although the youngster’s “insight and judgement are good”; Mendez-Villamil prescribed the antipsychotic drug Abilify for “impulsivity”. Wikipedia describes impulsivity as “a tendency to act on a whim, displaying behavior characterized by little or no forethought” which to me sounds like an active little boy.

The Department of Health is requesting that the Board of Medicine revoke or suspend Mendez-Villamil’s license, amongst other disciplinary options.

At this time, it is unclear why the Department of Health selected only these 3 patients as a basis for a complaint when Mendez-Villamil herded patients through his office like a Texas cattle drive.

Some background:

A Florida whistleblower discovered that Mendez-Villamil was writing 151 psych drug prescriptions per day and in 2009 suggested that Congress look at these high numbers.

U.S. Senator Grassley wrote a sharp letter to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services, noting: “the top Medicaid prescriber during that time wrote 96,685 prescriptions for mental health drugs…That means that this physician wrote approximately 153 prescriptions each and every day, assuming he did not take vacations.” Grassley demanded to know what systems federal agencies have in place to monitor utilization rates across the country. Mendez-Villamil prescribed about $4.7 million in antipsychotics alone in 2009.

This revelation led Grassley to commence an investigation of top prescribers in every state. In 2010 he asked each state to provide a list of the top 10 prescribers for the “antipsychotic” drugs Abilify, Geodon, Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa along with the “anti-anxiety” drug Xanax and a couple of pain killers. In 2012, Grassley wrote to each state asking again for the top prescribers of these drugs. PsychSearch.net is now compiling this 4 years worth of top prescriber data and investigating ramifications. For example, many of these top psychiatric prescribers have had their Medicaid contracts terminated as a result of this nationwide investigation.

Even with the shocking number of Mendez-Villamil’s prescriptions, the Florida Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Federal government are moving at the speed of a garden snail, if moving at all.

On the bright side we have two governmental cheetahs. U.S. Senator Grassley wasted no time. He spoke out honestly and directly, and even took matters into his own hands by starting the national investigation of top prescribers. And we have the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration which in April 2010 terminated Mendez-Villamil from the Medicaid program. He sued the state to get his Medicaid contract reinstated but apparently has given up. His attorney’s motions to withdraw from the case was granted in January of 2012.

Oh yeah, the reward. $100.00 goes to the first PsychSearch.net follower who provides a high quality photo of the face of Fernando Mendez-Villamil. (I am the sole judge on high quality) A photo of his office from Google Earth (see above) is simply not sufficient.