Commissioners voted on the program after a second public meeting on Tuesday
Prescription Drug Monitoring Program ordered for Stone County Commissioners voted on the program after a second public meeting on Tuesday 10/19/2017 Isaac Estes-Jones On Tuesday, October 17, Stone County o cially joined a growing number of counties in Missouri attached to the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program spearheaded by St. Louis County last year.
A er hearing from Representative Don Phillips, a representative from the Spring eld-Greene County Health Department and various individuals from Stone County, the Commission moved to join the program from St. Louis County.
“I am greatly respectful to the legislature and the Governor,” said Presiding Commissioner Dennis Wood, “But, I’m embarrassed that the Missouri Legislature is the only one in the nation that has not passed a reporting law. e Governor has taken some important steps, but it is not yet enough. It’s too bad the state can’t take care of this, it’s their job.”
Missouri is the only state in the nation without some form of a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP). Representative Phillips gave some background on the resistance in Jeerson City to passing such a law. “ e attitude at the capitol is that it doesn’t work, but, 49 out of 50 states wouldn’t join something with four at tires,” he said. “With my carrier in the Highway Patrol, I know that people doing illegal acts don’t want high di culty. ey will move toward other things when it is hard,” Phillips said. He was asked for his opinion on the PDMP before the council today. “I voted for this every chance I got, and I certainly support what you are doing here,” he said.
Th e lone pharmacist in attendance, Cori Dykes of Lakeland Pharmacy in Crane, told the Commission that Missouri Medicare already tracked and limited the amount of narcotics prescribed to patients with that form of health care. “Missouri Medicaid already does this for those individuals, so this would just get everyone else into a similar system,” she said.
Pam Burnett, Administrator for the Stone County Health Department, said that she has been making the rounds, talking to pharmacists in the county. “All of the pharmacists I’ve talked to so far are excited for this,” she said.
County Coroner John Cunnyngham con rmed to the Commission that Stone County has more than one opioid related overdose death per year. Detailed statistics on causes of death were not kept by prior coroners, but Cunnyngham said, “I just had one come back today as an overdose.”
Th e Commissioners voted unanimously to join the St. Louis County PDMP at the conclusion of the meeting. “ e paperwork is done, but now comes the legwork of signing everyone on,” said Wood.
Burnett said the timeline for implementation would be a couple of months. Sign ups from pharmacists will start rst, and their access will go live sometime a er the rst of the year. While participation is voluntary, Burnett did not think there would be any holdouts in Stone County. In Greene County, Gipson said they had a 100% of pharmacists join program.
What does this mean for me?
The vast majority of Stone County residents will not see any change in how they get their medications once the program goes live. ey will still take their prescriptions to a pharmacist, who will ll them. On the pharmacists’ end, information about opioid prescriptions will be uploaded to the St. Louis County database, so that future prescribers can ensure there is no abuse.
For those who abuse or are over-prescribed opioid drugs, pharmacists will likely stop lling those prescriptions as they will have access to the database that will show the prescription history for individual patients. is history is relegated to only narcotics and will not hold any other prescription history.
A fter pharmacists are signed up and online with the database, the next phase will be signing up doctors, so that they will also have access to this information.
What is a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program?
A Prescription Drug Monitoring Program attempts to curb over prescription of certain drugs by allowing doctors and pharmacists access to information about their patient’s prescriptions.
Th is is not a wide net that looks at all prescriptions, however. Only opioid drug information is logged.
Sharing information across counties is important to monitor over prescription and doctor shopping for opioid drugs. e data, consisting of simple identifying marks, along with doctor and prescription information ONLY for opioid drugs, is transmitted and stored by St. Louis County.
“All information shared with the PDMP is protected by HIPPA ( e law protecting health information),” said Kevin Gipson, Director of Health for the Spring eld-Greene County Health Department. “ e PDMP is basically for doctors and pharmacists to better serve their patients.”
For those concerned about privacy, the representatives from Spring eld and Greene County repeatedly emphasized this information is just between the doctor, pharmacist and the patient. “ is is not a public database. Law Enforcement does not have access to the data without a court order,” said Gipson.
Participation in the program will be completely voluntary. Some states make participation and reporting mandatory, but Missouri and the St. Louis program do not. Pharmacies and doctors have to sign an agreement with the Commission to participate. “ ere will be very little additional work for pharmacists and doctors o ces,” Gipson said. “With electronic medical records, it is as simple as clicking one button at the end of the day.”