Law Requires Drs. & Pharmacists to Inform on Patients

Lightmeup

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I just learned about this and it's kind of disturbing. Last month Bush signed into law the "National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of 2005". From this article:
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/news/opinion/12558821.htm

"It requires those dispensing controlled substances (such as pharmacists and physicians) to submit information to state governments within one week of filling prescriptions, including patients' names, addresses and telephone numbers. Data also will be collected on animal owners whose pets are prescribed controlled substances by veterinarians.

Additionally, the new law will greatly undermine Americans' health privacy because citizens don't have a right to opt out of the state electronic databases. Nor do they have a right to know whether their personal health data are being accessed by many others, including law-enforcement officials."

This just strikes me as being over the edge, too much big brother?
 

gadget_lover

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Well, let's look at it from another angle.

The drug companies already have such lists, and your pharmacist also keeps records. The fact that you have been prescribed a controlled drug is not much of a secret.

As to why such reporting might be desired? The main reason is to help detect precription abuse. That comes into play when a person becomes adicted to a drug and starts going to more than one doctor to get enough prescriptions to cover their habit. Currently there is no way to detect this behaviour since the doctors, pharmacy and insurance companies don't share their databases.

I on;y object to 'big brother' scenarios if there is no plausible reason or need. In this case, it should close a major loophole in our prescription medication system.
 

James S

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There is a disconnect in this law, just like in gun control laws. There is a very real and wide spread problem of street sales of prescription drugs, like codeine and other pain medication. However, the people selling it on the street definitely do not have a prescription from their doctor for it. So how do they get it? I dont konw, and neither do the cops. A certain amount certainly comes from people that get prescriptions and then sell it, but there is no way this adds up to more than a nuisance percentage of whats out there. Somewhere there is a huge leak in the system even though pharmacies are required to account for each and every last pill of these schedule 1 drugs and if they loose too many they are investigated. Doctors who specialize in giving these drugs to patients who are in constant pain are constantly harassed by the police even though they know that their patients are actually taking the drugs.

So you have a system in place that actually works to keep track of the drugs, and then you further legislate difficulty for people that are following the law that will do little if anything towards finding where the crooks are getting their hands on the stuff.

stupid, and ineffectual.
 

attowatt

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Dont know if this is related, as it is an over the counter drug:

I went to Walgreens last week to get claritin D 12 hour(normally get it at walmart, but didnt want to deal with parking and standing lines inside) and it is no longer available off the shelf. I asked the clerk, and she said to go to the back, where the pharmacy is. I proceed to pharmacy and ask for claritin D12 hour and pharmacist pulls out a cardboard box from under counter and gives it to me AFTER he documents info from my drivers license. He says the city police are now tracking the purchase of this over-the-counter drug, as it is used to make meth.

Meanwhile he has a bit of the "sniffles", so I ask him " Who's minding the fort?" he says "Huh ?"
 

Ronrph

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- the reason that claritin-d was behind the counter was that it contains pseudophedrine which is starting point to make methamphetamine. This is only law in certain states (not New Jersey). I guess the law makes sense if it does cut down on methamphetamine production- but my guess is that most of these people probably buy it in bulk from somewhere rather than "extract" the pseudophedrine from products like claritin-d.
- most pharmacies do report on drug usage. The software vendors extract it from the computer ( to sell usuage reports to the drug companies); also all insurances have a record. However the data that is extracted is not linked to names (at least for the software vendors). That would be a violation of HIPAA ( the health insurance portability and accountability act).
- I do support a database of people/ controlled substance use. Too much of my time is spent dispensing drugs to people I know are abusing drugs ( alright at least "I believe" giving them the benefit of the doubt). I am familiar with too many doctors who just seem to be drug suppliers. These doctors seem to just become known by the drug abusers as "easy marks" or perhaps they recieve compensation for the scripts.
- i guess I am letting pharmacists off the hook because I know I don't do anything illegal; but as in any profession I guess there are some bad apples also
 

PhotonWrangler

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I generally don't like these kinds of laws, but SOMEthing has to be done about the alarming increase in meth labs. This country has enough sociatal problems on it's hands without seeing the whole place degrade into a nation of meth users.
 

IlluminatingBikr

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I have heard that everyday two 747's worth of people die from medical errors. Is there any chance that this registry will prevent some of these problems? Might it let doctors nation-wide know what prescriptions you are on if, god forbid, something bad should happen to you and you are unable to communicate what prescriptions you are taking?

Or is this solely an anti-drug abuse registry, as has been mentioned here?
 

PhotonWrangler

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I think that one reason is to prevent "doctor shopping." I remember watching one of those emergency medical shows on TV where they brought in an elderly woman wo could not be woken up completely no matter what they did, so she was pretty incoherent. It turned out that she was a doctor-shopper, and when they were finally able to interview her, she had numerous overlapping subscriptions for painkillers and sedatives from multiple doctors and she was taking them all! None of the doctors knew about the others who were prescribing the same stuff.

Her situation reminds me of a certain well known radio talk show guy who was busted for doing the same thing.
 

K A

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I work for Osco Drugs myself (not in the Pharmacy though) in Kansas and they are doing the same thing here.

There is a new nasal decongestant coming out on the market that is supposedly not able to be made into Meth. Sudafed is using it and their replacement for Sudafed is Sudafed PE. The ingrediant is Phenylephrine HCl. Some products are already switching out with this new PE ingrediant. We are already getting stuff in for a reset coming up to our C&C set.
 

gadget_lover

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The thread title is
Law Requires Drs. & Pharmacists to Inform on Patients

This has connotations that the Drs. & Pharmacists are reporting wrong-doing. If the patient is not doing anything wrong, there's nothing to "inform on".

But the law simply requires that

lightmeup said:
those dispensing controlled substances (such as pharmacists and physicians) to submit information to state governments within one week of filling prescriptions, including patients' names, addresses and telephone numbers.

Yes, the doctors simply have to list what they've prescribed in a way that chan be checked and compared. To me, this is common sense, nothing more.

Yes, it can be abused if the government were hunting down specific people, but the fact that we have a "100 most wanted" list indicates that they don't try that hard.

Daniel
 

Lightmeup

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I guess one of the things that bothers me about it is that there is no oversight. Apparently anyone who wants the info can get it. I could see health insurance companies screening applicants with it. If they saw that you had taken a certain drug in the past, they might use it as grounds to deny insurance to you because of what it might have been used to treat. Or employers could use it to deny employment, fearing you might have had some condition or disease, whether you did or not. Also, our government has a less than sterling record of safeguarding our personal data anyway.
 

gadget_lover

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I don't think that it's an issue for the following reasons:

1) to get insurance, you have to sign off on a disclosure of every disease and condition you've ever been treated for. Failure to provide complete and accurate information is grounds for canceling your insurance,

2) Every doctor I've visited in the last 5 years has had, as a condition of treatment, a clause saying that they can disclose any and all medical information as necessary to treat the illness or bill for the treatment.

3) I'm not worried about the feds protecting my information. My bank, insurance company, employer and many other manage to leak my personal information right and left. Adding another drip to the torrent is no big deal.

Yes, putting everything in one database makes it a touch easier to gather info. BIg deal. I'll gladly tell everyone that I'm taking a 10/10 dose of Lotrel once a day. Now what can you do with that information? Not a lot.

Daniel
 

bwaites

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This is the problem I foresee:


You are interviewing for a job, it's an important job, your family livliehood is at stake.

The interviewer says, "Now just when was it that you stopped beating your wife and using drugs?"

Your reply, " I never beat my wife, and what are you talking about?"

His response, "Well it very clearly indicates here that you used long acting narcotics for a prolonged period of time."

Your response, "I have never used long acting narcotics."

His response, "Well, a (fill in your name and birthdate) was sold a significant amount of the Oxycontin from X to X and that is your name and birthdate, correct?"

Now, no matter what response you make, you can't win, because he has information that you can neither correct nor dispute efficiently.

The list is a bad idea, it won't do what people want it to, and it will hurt innocent people.

If you are trying to stop narcotic abuse, you are whistling in the wind.

Alcohol causes approx. 100,000 deaths per year, 65% of Americans will be in an accident involving alcohol during their lifetime.

Tobacco causes approx. 500,000 deaths per year.

BUT...Illegal drugs, less than 20,000.

Looks to me like we are focusing on the wrong thing!!!!

Don't misconstrue this to mean that I don't think illicit drugs are a problem, but I DO think that legal ones are a much larger one!!

All this reporting and information only helps if someone who can do something about it actually uses the info, and like most government programs, FAT chance of that happening!!

Bill
 

Frangible

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Don't misconstrue this to mean that I don't think illicit drugs are a problem, but I DO think that legal ones are a much larger one!!

Alcohol is pretty nasty stuff imo, because of the changes in behavior it induces, and the risk it exposes other people to when stupid people use it irresponsibly. Nicotine is in my opinion the most ironic drug ever. By itself, it's relatively benign, but in tobacco form has a lot of really, really nasty carcinogens that give it the highest fatality rate of any drug (1.4%). I don't understand how people accept that risk for such a weak beneficial effect, other than possibly unconciously self-medicating some sort of problem (which a lot of drug use is suspected of being).

I really don't think a couple thousand people popping oxycontin or adderall is that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. And probably not worth the new system's cost and problems as you state.

As long as people aren't hurting someone else, I really could care less what they put in their bodies.
 

James S

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there should be a law that states whenever a state or national database of information is created, that access to that database requires an act of said congress. If it's for law enforcement to catch people getting fake prescriptions for codine then the act forming the database should stipulate exactly what it takes to use it and what you can use it for. In this case it should require an officer actually working on the case to search for that data and any information found is admissible in court action only for the purpose of convicting for stealing codeine. If they want to change that to let other people have that info in the future, thats fine, but it should require another act of congress to do so.

I dont think any of us are really against giving law enforcement the powers and information that they need to do their job. What I'm against is giving it to them without oversight and without a paper trail. If you want to violate my privacy and my rights to find out if I'm committing a crime you should be prepared to go in front of a judge to get the order that allows you to tap my phone and search my medicine cabinet. They shouldn't be allowed to just sit down at their desk in the morning and randomly pick people for observation. We need accountability!
 

Bravo25

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I can see us getting closer, and closer to that injected device that is 1/10th the size of a grain of rice. The one that contains all you person, medical, banking, and geographical information.
Now for those that are going to start screaming "I better get my aluminum foil beenie on", You being very niave, and obtuse if you ignore the fact that this is the direction we are heading.
 

greenLED

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OR now requires a prescription if you want to get pseudoephedrine. They passed the law 'cuz of the meth problem.

Being a very allergic person with chronic sinus congestion problems, I absolutely hate this. They make me feel like a criminal every time I want to buy a common medication. Not to mention I now have to pay $100's of dollars for a visit to my doctor just to get a stupid prescription. And will my insurance cover this?? What about people with my same problem and no insurance? All the while the meth-makers are getting their raw materials elsewhere and LTAO at these backwards rules. :mad:

I can't wait for some type of replacement drug that's available over-the-counter.
 

db

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Per Hipaa:
Your health information cannot be used or shared
without your written permission unless this law
allows it. For example, without your authorization,
your provider generally cannot
 Give your information to your employer
 Use or share your information for marketing or
advertising purposes
 Share private notes about your mental health
counseling sessions

Source: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/
Consumer - Fact Sheet: Privacy and Your Health Information (pdf file)

Of course, this database is probably somehow exempted....
 

gadget_lover

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In bwaites fictional job interview, the assumtion is that the person does not do drugs and the database is incorrect and the employer has somehow broken the law to get those records. Like any other record that is incorrect, there will be an apeal processes to correct it.

In James S's asertion that it should only be used after a person is a suspect... I just have to disagree. I'd much rather that Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction pop up on a morning routine report of people who are "doctor shopping" rather than wait till he gets further addicted or harmed in other ways.

After all, what's wrong with a simple computer program that spits out the names of folks that have multiple prescriptions filed for two, three or ten times the normal amounts of drugs? That's as anonymous and unbiased as as you can get. No profiling, no waiting till it gets worse.

In bwaites message he asserts that the deaths from drugs are relatively minor. What is not noted is how much of the crime and violence we see every day is associated with drug addiction. I know several good people who had their lives ruined by their addictions, and even after being clean for several years they are still paying off the debts and compensation for the people they ripped off. It's sad to hear a normally moral young man talk about how he stole cars and bikes and traded them for enough drugs to get by.

Yeah, death is just one part of the equation. I don't care what drugs someone else does as long as they are physically isolated from me and mine so their self destruction does not hurt others. Unfortunately, they live in the same cities, they walk the same streets. They steal from my neighborhood and they fill up my jail when they are caught. They can't keep a job so they collect welfare from my taxes. They drive drunk or high and kill and cripple complete strangers.

Move them to a compound in Alaska and let them have a grand old time? Ok! That's the only way that their addiction will not effect anyone else.

Just my opinion.
 
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