Study: Doctors call in more antibiotics without exams

Prescribing antibiotics has become so common that many doctors literally are just phoning it in, a new analysis of insurance claims suggests.

Researchers found that 40% of people who filled an antibiotic prescription had not seen a doctor in at least a month, raising the possibility that their symptoms were the result of a viral infection, which doesn't respond to antibiotics, instead of a bacterial infection, which does. Though antibiotics generally are benign, overprescribing has helped produce drug-resistant "superbugs."

"The study is just a broad indicator of too great a willingness to prescribe," says author William Marder, senior vice president and general manager of Thomson Medstat, a health care information company based in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Steve - after a rigorous campaign by the media and government to reign in reckless antibiotic use, it is inexplicable that this is still happening. Either the message is not being heard or some doctors just find it much easier to prescribe an antibiotic than to do the due diligence it requires to discover if they are even needed. Is it not scary enough that many pathogens are now becoming resistant to many of the antibiotics that exist? Have we not learned that the resistant pathogens are becoming more virulent than ever?