Tennessee’s largest recipient of opioids from 2006 to 2012 wants a recount. A federal database found a pharmacy in Murfreesboro owned by state Sen. Shane Reeves sold 46 million pills over six years. But the company now believes that figure is way off.
TwelveStone Health Partners, which was known during the period as Reeves-Sain Extended Care, has done its own audit for the period covered by the database. The count came up with 2.5 million opioid pills — which is a fraction of the reported total.
“TwelveStone Health Partners began an internal investigation to verify the number of pills in the report since by comparison to other operators in Tennessee and the U.S., the number of Lortab pills (hydrocodone) reported seemed unreasonably high,” the company said in a statement Monday.
Earlier this summer, Reeves
told WPLN he wasn’t entirely surprised to be the largest seller of high-powered pain pills in the state. Much of his business is with hospice agencies and nursing homes. Still, he thought the figure was inflated and said he’d try to figure out why.
The so-called ARCOS database was unsealed as part of a federal court case and
published by the Washington Post last month.
The records are kept by the Drug Enforcement Agency, but a spokesperson says the DEA can’t vouch for any analysis done by a third party.
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