It’s a tool, though, that doctors love to hate. A common gripe is that it takes more than 20 mouse clicks to see a patient’s prescription information. Doctors also complain that databases take up to a week or longer to update. But a movement to make PDMPs more functional has picked up considerable steam. Several states have recently upgraded their systems while also adding features to give doctors a more comprehensive look at a patient.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker campaigned, in part, on a promise to revamp his state’s PDMP. Easier-to-use technology was rolled out last August, along with a new law requiring doctors to check before prescribing the most addictive opioids. Around 70 percent of doctors signed up for the revamped database in its first six months, a marked increase from the number who had previously been using the system. In New York state, doctors are not only mandated to use electronic prescriptions but are also required to first look up a patient’s drug history.
Missouri is the only state without a PDMP, largely the result of a campaign by state Sen. Rob Schaaf, a physician who objects to the databases on privacy grounds. Schaaf did introduce a PDMP bill this legislative session, but it’s quite limited: A patient’s prescription history would be made available to a doctor only if the state health department determined that the patient might be doctor shopping. The Missouri Medical Association has come out against it.
The state’s inaction has led several Missouri counties, including its most populous ones, to take matters into their own hands. St. Louis, St. Charles and Jackson counties all authorized PDMPs in 2016, and the systems are set to go live later this year. Other counties will be able to access the data. “This has really put a new wind in our sail,” says state Rep. Holly Rehder, who introduced a competing PMDP bill in this legislative session, just as she and a Senate colleague have in previous years.
With the action now unfolding at the county level, Rehder is more optimistic that her bill could pass this time. “It’s not perfect,” says Rehder, who grew up among addicts in her family and whose daughter was once hooked on prescription opiates, “but it’s leaps and bounds from where we were last year.”
No one in Missouri or elsewhere sees PDMPs as a silver bullet. While the number of prescriptions for opioids dipped nationally last year, overdose deaths ticked up to 50,000, driven in part by an increase in abuse of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. “The numbers that we’ve been seeing with fentanyl in particular are disappointing,” says Massachusetts’ Gessner. “This is an issue we’re going to be dealing with for a while.”
This article was originally published on Governing.
