In an effort to reduce prescription drug abuse, CVS pharmacists have adopted an analytical system to help identify “pill mill” prescribers – those who prescribe an extremely high number of CS compared to other practitioners with similar listed specialties. The system, which was detailed in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, is designed to “identify and take action against physicians and other prescribers who exhibited extreme patterns of use of ‘high-risk drugs’ relative to other prescribers.” Using data gathered from 2010 to 2012, CVS identified 42 outliers. Of those, 36 either did not respond to inquiries, or failed to provide adequate explanations for the abnormal prescription behavior. CVS stopped filling prescriptions from those clinics. Only three prescribers have since attempted to reverse the decision. The two authors of the article suggest making aggregated data available could help pharmacies “target patterns of abuse” in light of the continued growth of CS abuse and the resulting tragedies.