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Scores of Ontario doctors are billing the province hundreds of thousands of dollars each to treat people addicted to opioids, according to a new study into what one critic calls the province’s burgeoning network of “McMethadone” clinics.

The top 10 per cent of methadone prescribers — 57 doctors — billed an average of $648,352 each in 2014, researchers found. Together they were looking after half the methadone population.

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Each had, on average, 435 methadone patients with public drug coverage. Each billed for an average of 97 patients daily (71 of them on methadone) and each had patients return every four or five days, on average, to provide a urine sample.

According to the authors, there’s no evidence that, after the first few weeks or months of treatment “routine, ongoing weekly office visits and urine drug screens are associated with reduced substance use.”

If anything, the opposite may be true, they said.