Panel probes “doctor shopping”
http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140615/GZ01/140619561/1419
From the article:
A state panel has sent more than 2,500 letters to medical professionals across West Virginia, warning that their patients could be “doctor shopping” for prescription drugs.
A state Board of Pharmacy “review committee” recently distributed the notices, after the panel identified 176 people who have received pain-pill prescriptions from 13 or more doctors over the past 12 months.
What is not clear from the article was the letters sent to these medical professionals contained the names of the “patients of interest” .. or just notifying that the health care professional had “patients of interest ” in their practices?
Nearly 8,000 people picked up pain-pill prescriptions from six or more different physicians, which amounted to more than 50,000 office visits, according to the report.
I don’t know how the WV PMP functions.. but.. I am familiar with two other states.. and if you allot 15 minutes to pull a PMP report and evaluate it.. So healthcare professionals need to find 12,500 man hours each year.. to pull/evaluate reports… which apparently the PMP has already evaluated.
Imagine this.. a pt has an office appt… walks in and presents their driver’s license.. which the office secretary scans into equipment that automatically connects to the PMP.. much like a charge card machine… and comes back a pass/no pass from the PMP if this particular pt has been flagged as a “pt of interest” and if the pt has been flagged a report will be sent to the office. Further prescribing of controls for this pt ???
A state panel has sent more than 2,500 letters to medical professionals across West Virginia, warning that their patients could be “doctor shopping” for prescription drugs.
A state Board of Pharmacy “review committee” recently distributed the notices, after the panel identified 176 people who have received pain-pill prescriptions from 13 or more doctors over the past 12 months.
– See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140615/GZ01/140619561/1419#sthash.csmGogJl.dpuf
A state panel has sent more than 2,500 letters to medical professionals across West Virginia, warning that their patients could be “doctor shopping” for prescription drugs.
A state Board of Pharmacy “review committee” recently distributed the notices, after the panel identified 176 people who have received pain-pill prescriptions from 13 or more doctors over the past 12 months.
– See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140615/GZ01/140619561/1419#sthash.csmGogJl.dpuf
Filed under: General Problems
That might be great if the PMP was DONE at the docs office. Know how many docs told me they don’t know how to do an INSPECT or their nurse does it if she has time? At my end it’s not always the patient dropping off or picking up the med, I can only check that the license of said person is in date and the pic matches and notate that DL on the RX. I run an INSPECT, seem it only really wants name address and DOB of patient.At least the last time I ran one and that was 4 yrs ago. (last time I worked retail) Often in computers where I;ve worked, DL#s are not patients but maybe caregivers or as stated above. At one time IN was doing those secured licenses…needed several types of documentation to get your DL renewed….it was a pain..but I got mine…but there was such an uproar and I think the money dried up so government backed off program nationwide. Too bad, my ex sister in law works in Indy for ABC. She says it’s not uncommon for her to put in a ss# and DL# for someone applying for a bartenders license and there would be several names attached to those numbers. (alot of illegal aliens with phoney documents she says) They turn them in to BMV and nothing got done. I can imagine the uproar that would happen to create a program to discourage doctor shoppers…probably similar to the uproar the progressive left has on using DL for voter ID. I might add when I looked at INSPECT with multiple docs and narc orders, often they’re different strengths so the insurance never picks up on the duplications and rejects. Excuse to me..’Well that one didn’t work so I got sent to doc so and so and he prescribed me such and such, we hope this one works…or ” I had major dental work done after seeing my pain doc” Just speaking from my own experience.
BTW I have called docs on ones I believe to be doc shoppers from INSPECT just to give heads up…never knew if it went anywhere.