WV Board of Pharmacy dismisses director

WV Board of Pharmacy dismisses director

http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-health/20170718/wv-board-of-pharmacy-dismisses-director

The West Virginia Board of Pharmacy has dismissed its executive director amid a review of rules that require drug distributors to report on pharmacies that order a “suspicious” number of painkillers and other powerful prescription medications.

David Potters, who also was the pharmacy board’s general counsel, departed after 10 years with the agency.

Asked for the reason for Potters’ dismissal, board Chairman Dennis Lewis said, “I’m not at liberty to discuss that. You just don’t do that.”

The board has appointed Mike Goff, an agency administrator and former West Virginia State Police trooper, as acting executive director. Goff oversees the state’s prescription monitoring database. The board plans to advertise for a new general counsel to handle legal matters.

Earlier this year, the pharmacy board hired a chief financial officer for the first time — a move designed to lessen Potters’ workload. The board dismissed Potters during an emergency meeting late last month. He declined to comment Tuesday.

In December, a Gazette-Mail investigation found that the pharmacy board failed to enforce rules to report suspicious orders for controlled substances in West Virginia. Potters acknowledged that the rules, which were adopted years before he was hired, weren’t on the agency’s radar.

Those same years, the pharmacy board was giving spotless inspection reviews to small-town pharmacies that ordered more pills than could be possibly taken by people who really needed medicine for pain, the newspaper found.

In response, the board has spent the past six months developing a reporting system to flag suspect drug orders.

Drug wholesale distributors — companies that ship drugs from manufacturers to pharmacies — are cooperating with the review, Lewis said.

 “We’ve been pushing very hard on the suspicious orders, to get that up and as strong as possible,” Lewis said. “We’ve been working on that as hard as we can. It takes more time than we would like.”

The board is developing a standard form for drug distributors to report suspicious orders from pharmacies for painkillers and anti-anxiety medications, Lewis said. The reporting system is designed to curb the proliferation of controlled substances.

Drug distributors must submit the reports monthly, according to the board’s proposed rules.

“We’ll use the reports to make an evaluation of what is really going on,” Lewis said. “We want something that is readable and usable.”

The proposed changes also will require wholesalers to disclose whether they have had any questionable drug orders from pharmacies.

“We’re wanting them to do ‘zero’ reporting if they don’t have any suspicious orders, or if they do have them, we want them,” Lewis said. “And we want to be able to pin down what the suspicious order is for.”

Also, the board plans to require wholesalers to report when they refuse to ship controlled substances to specific pharmacies.

“If they’re going to cut off a pharmacy, we want to know about it,” Lewis said.

The pharmacy board is expected to discuss the proposed rules to track suspicious drug orders at a meeting next week.

Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.

Isn’t it a number of different city, county, state agencies that are contemplating suing just about anyone and everyone in the prescription distribution system… accusing them of being the cause of the “opiate epidemic” in WV ?

I think that it was  William Shakespeare in the 1600 play Hamlet that stated  “The lady doth protest too much, methinks

Perhaps those in WV… should first clean up their own house before they start suing others for their problems ?

 

2 Responses

  1. Forcing pharmacists to be policemen for the government instead of what they are trained to do. Great idea–put a policeman in the job!! I assume he knows about pharmacy issues. Oh–but that doesn’t really matter does it, when the agenda is to charge more doctors with criminality to steal their assets.
    http://www.doctorsofcourage.org

  2. Or has the federal government made it literally impossible w/this pdm program/new rules for ANYONE to do their job to their satifaction,,,,The feds need to get out of our healthcare decisions ,like yesterday,,,jmo,,,maryw

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