Posted by Michael Wonder on 18 Sep 2019
Xanax still being overprescribed despite policy changes
19 September 2019 - Patients are still being prescribed hundreds of Xanax tablets a year despite a cut in government subsidies.
Reports of anxiety drug poisonings have also remained relatively stable, suggesting more people were turning to private prescriptions, a report published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
In 2017, the government made changes to the public subsidy of Xanax through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in an effort to limit its misuse. The large two-milligram tablet was removed from the subsidy, packet sizes were reduced from 50 to 10 tablets and refills were removed so new prescriptions were required.
