The National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) yesterday released a list of 20 clinics, hospitals and other medical institutions it said appear to have overprescribed antidepressant drugs, and said it would crackdown on the practice.
The clinics and hospitals were singled out based on the combined number of overlapping days for antidepressant prescriptions issued to patients between July and September last year, NHIA officials said.
“A total of 1,345 hospitals and clinics nationwide were divided into four groups according to the total number of days of antidepressant drugs they prescribed during the period: more than 300,000 days (15 institutions), 100,000 to 300,000 days (82 institutions), 10,000 to 100,000 days (350 institutions) and less than 10,000 days (898 institutions),” Medical Review and Pharmaceutical Benefits Division official Wang Pen-jen (王本仁) said.
Five clinics or hospitals with the highest percentage of overlapping prescription days were selected from each group, Wang said.
Hong Hai Da Clinic in Keelung topped the overall list with 5.66 percent, followed by Changhua County’s Lin Ching-chao Clinic with 5.25 percent and Sunny Clinic in Hsinchu with 4.88 percent, Wang said.
Among large-scale hospitals, the largest percentage — 0.45 percent — was found at the Taoyuan Psychiatric Center in then-Taoyuan County, followed by Taipei City Hospital with 0.37 percent and Taipei Veterans General Hospital with 0.35 percent, NIHA figures showed.
The national average percentage during the review period was 0.34 percent, the data showed.
The total amount of antidepressant drugs prescribed in Taiwan last year was worth NT$2.5 billion (US$83 million).
People might have taken an excessive number of antidepressant drugs without even knowing that they had been overprescribed, which could also pose a threat to their health, Wang said.
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