Miami leads nation in Medicare drug spending

Elderly Miami residents on Medicare filled more prescriptions for drugs in 2010 than seniors elsewhere in the country, and they were more than twice as likely as residents in Rochester, Minn., to fill at least one prescription for medications that have been identified as high-risk for patients over age 65, such as skeletal muscle relaxants, long-acting benzodiazepines, and highly sedating antihistamines. These are two of the latest findings from the Dartmouth Atlas Project, which on Tuesday released a report on prescription drug use among seniors that showed, once again, Miami has by far the highest healthcare costs in the nation — with the average Medicare patient spending $4,738 on prescription drugs in 2010, more than any other region and well above the national average of $2,968.