oes.gsa.govMedicare Part D peer-comparison letters to Schedule II overprescribers
In 2014-2015 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, with the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (later the GSA Office of Evaluation Sciences), mailed letters to Medicare Part D prescribers whose Schedule II prescribing (mostly opioids) was far above peers in the same state and specialty, telling them their pattern was unlike their peers'. It was run as a randomized trial of 1,518 prescribers and found no effect.
- Years
- 2014–2015
- Country
- United States
- Topic
- Opioids
- Asks people to
- Stop
- Strategy
- Social norms
- Channel
- Direct mail
- Audience
- CliniciansMedicare Part D prescribers flagged as Schedule II outliers relative to peers in the same state and specialty.
Evidence
ExperimentalNo effect
Randomized trial, 1,518 outlier prescribers: no detectable effect of the peer-comparison letter on Schedule II prescribing in the 90 days after mailing (Sacarny 2016). The same team later found that CMS letters on quetiapine overprescribing did work (a separate trial), and that letters citing a legal mandate raised PDMP use in Minnesota.
Sponsor (who paid)
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Center for Program Integrity Federal government, sender
- White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team / GSA Office of Evaluation Sciences Federal government, design and evaluation
Credits (who made it)
- Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL North America) researchers (Sacarny, Finkelstein) Research evaluation, 2014-2016 source
Related campaigns
Sources
- Sacarny A, Yokum D, Finkelstein A, Agrawal S. Medicare Letters To Curb Overprescribing Of Controlled Substances Had No Detectable Effect On Providers. Health Aff 35(3):471-9 evaluation · 2016 · DOI 10.1377/hlthaff.2015.1025 · PMID 26953302
- Reducing inappropriate prescribing of Schedule II substances in Medicare Part D (GSA Office of Evaluation Sciences) sponsor
- Reducing Inappropriate Prescribing of Controlled Substances in the United States (J-PAL; timeline 2014-2015, AEARCTR-0000525) evaluation
Research notes
Clinician-facing campaign. Discovered 2026-10-22 for #17 (clinician-campaigns pass). Credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: OES project page (1,518 providers, 90-day window) and J-PAL page (timeline 2014-2015). Exact mailing month not found. Worth a sibling case: CMS quetiapine letters (Sacarny et al., JAMA Psychiatry 2018), which did reduce prescribing - not opioid, not filed here. Procurement search 2026-10-22: no CMS contract for the 2014 letters found in USAspending (searched prescriber, peer comparison, Medicare Drug Integrity Contractor). J-PAL and press coverage describe the letters as sent by CMS itself; no mailing vendor named.
Record cases/cms-medicare-part-d-overprescriber-letters.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign