Statewide database could help fight prescription fraud

[News Flash]

Last week, a Sarasota County sheriff's deputy resigned after he was accused of going from doctor to doctor to collect prescriptions that netted more than 1,700 painkiller pills.

Tuesday's newspaper reported arrests after someone tried to mail oxycodone powder to an inmate at the Manatee County jail.

Those stories make the obvious connections between drugs and life around us. A more subtle rendering appears on the obituary pages. Obituary notices often do not list causes of death, but in Sarasota County, someone between the ages of 15 and 44 is more likely to die of a prescription drug overdose than of anything else.

Doctors too freely write prescriptions for highly addictive narcotics. Kids and young adults are getting hooked as they recover from sports injuries or tooth extractions. Before long, we're reading their obits or news of their arrests after they break into houses for cash to feed their addiction.

That's the bad news. The good news is that we can act. We can control the supply. Unlike heroin, cocaine or other illegal drugs supplied via an underground network, pharmaceutical drugs come primarily from two sources: doctors and pharmacies, both of which record their transactions.

All we have to do is coordinate the record-keeping.

For instance, before doctors write a prescription for a painkiller, they should be able to check a statewide database to see if a patient has received a similar prescription from another doctor. That would all but eliminate "doctor shopping."

If pharmacists demanded photo identification before filling painkiller prescriptions and checked a state database, it would all but eliminate "pill mills." These are clinics headed by doctors who profit by dispensing painkillers with little concern for the consequences.

A database monitoring program is not new. Thirty-eight states have mandated some version. Florida is not one, although momentum for change is building.

On Thursday, a coalition of drug awareness organizations will give parents and others information they need to lobby legislators for the monitoring program. The meeting is at:

• 7 p.m.
  Nov. 13
  Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine
  5000 Lakewood Ranch Blvd.
  Lakewood Ranch

Organizer Diane Ramseyer (650-4856) says education and treatment programs will have to complement the monitoring database, but at least that's one area where state lawmakers can make a difference. Their intervention cannot come too soon.

Source

Positive information. This is NEEDED!!