Pharmacists in Florida must complete 2 extra hours of training
Rule change is in response to pain pill epidemic in Florida, officials say
http://www.wesh.com/news/pharmacists-in-florida-must-complete-2-extra-hours-of-training/36881172
The Florida Board of Pharmacy has approved a new rule that requires pharmacists to complete two extra hours of training regarding prescription pain medication.
Officials say it’s the first step to help pharmacists deal with patients who require pain medication.
The rule change begins to outline what pharmacists can do when handling patients who are prescribed pain medication.
Pharmacists will have access to a database that will ensure that the patient is seeking to obtain the drug legally.
The new rule goes into effect on Dec. 24.
Filed under: General Problems
First look at the wording of this.
“Officials say it’s the first step to help pharmacists deal with patients who require pain medication.”
Does anyone else feel as if they are talking about a child in need of a timeout instead of a patient who needs treatment for chronic pain? The words “Deal With” suggests to me that the authors intentions are still denial and not the actual use of opiate medications to treat pain.
Yes, as far as any medication that has addictive tendencies or could cause death due to overuse, there should be a strict monitoring system, but not by bureaucrats, by medical professionals. With today’s technology an interactive monitoring system really shouldn’t be a problem and I have no idea why it has been for the BOP in Florida. It’s like the state of Florida is dealing with dimpled chads on ballots for a Presidential election again.
Why do medical records need to be requested from one doctor to another? Hell when I first moved from Michigan to Louisiana I had my records released to my new primary. Later it was like pulling teeth to have those very records shared with my PM, and they both are in the same medical group. As a matter of fact, I had to sign another medical release form and have my Michigan doctors send my records to my PM.
Why isn’t there a medical database shared by all providers so that a patient receives the proper medical treatment in a speedy manner no matter what facility or what state a person is in? This database would contain medical history and treatment, drug and food allergies along with medication/prescription history, or is this just too simple of a concept to be reasonable? If three credit bureau’s can do something similar, why can’t a crap load of PHD’s?
While creating an official set of guidelines and providing an additional set of tools are, in concept, a good thing as it allows the pharmacist to know where a clearly delineated boundary exists, I see this problematic in a few areas. I have more than enough time in the dispensing game to be able to see the potential, practical shortcomings.
1) Just because the Florida BOP comes up with a set of guidelines that allows for the pharmacist to have a defensible rationale for his/her actions that is backed by the authority of the State of Florida, is this rationale robust enough to withstand any potential criminal findings by the DEA? The truth is that this can turn into a game of political brinkmanship with the pharmacist as the pawn.
2) The OP includes the line that reads, “Pharmacists will have access to a database that will ensure that the patient is seeking to obtain the drug legally.” Really? If this database exists and has the ability to be a digital version of the late great Johnny Carson’s character, Carnack, then why don’t the other 49 states have access to this “Wonder Algorithm”? I suspect that the article is referring to the State of Florida’s version of the PMP (Prescription Monitoring Program) database. These databases can be gamed in any number of ways. Do a Google search if your’e skeptical. In any case, the PMP cannot divine intent. PMP’s are better than nothing, but they cannot ensure anything to the degree that the article implies.
3) The truth is that the Pharmacist has always known what they can and can’t do, with regards to the dispensing of prescription pain meds. The various state board exams spend a fair amount of time assessing the license candidate’s knowledge in dispensing controlled substances. the only ting that has changed is the was the state and the DEA interprets their own rules. Mind you, these rules are fiat legislation, and n a technical sense are unconstitutional. They carry the weight of law, even though they were never subjected to any of the mandated legislative process. Even so, they have been the basis for people spending months and years in cages or being subjected to other legal disabilities as a result of someone running afoul of “Da’ Rules”, either by accident or with criminal intent.
The only thing to be accomplished by the State of Florida’s requirement that the Pharmacist be subjected to the 2 hour CEU requirement is that the Pharmacist will know what the state’s current interpretation is. Again, referring back to #1, this probably will not address the DEA’s current interpretation in a legally robust enough manner to allow for a defensible rationale in a court of law. The bureaucracies are not interested in public safety or justice. When all the veneer is stripped away, all the prevarications, obfuscations and dissembling, the only thing that matters is that the State wins.
At the end of the day, this is just the Florida BOP trying to ally the anxiety of the licensee and the chronic pain patient. Like most reactive actions taken by such a bureaucracy, they tend to be more about “feeling good” and “warm fuzzies” than actual effectiveness. Color me extremely cynical, but I don’t see much actual relief coming out of this for anyone. The truth will come fully into the light in maybe five years when one can look back and see if this new mandate for the Florida licensed pharmacist really does any good. By that time, there will be enough administrative, civil and criminal law cases in the final stages of resolution or completely settled for there to be an adequate public record to assess effectiveness. There will be a an adequate number of news articles, op eds and blogs published to act as an indicator of the effectiveness of this mandated CEU program. Florida’s BOP is counting on the short term attention span of the general public and the collective amnesia of same to get back to the business of imposing evermore cumbersome regulations over the profession in that state and extorting more fees and fines out of the entities that it presumes to rule over. The formulation of this Mandatory 2 Hour CEU for the Florida pharmacist is just an inconvenient bump in the road for the Board, and I’m reasonably sure that is exactly how the Board sees it. I’m glad that I don’t have to live or work there.
Don’t know if that GOOD or Bad. The pharmacist are pretty confused already.