Nevada pharmacies to track drug sales

Art Nadler

Monday, Oct. 14, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

People who misuse drugs by coaxing different physicians to fill identical prescriptions are about to get a rude awakening.

Effective Jan. 1, pharmacies in Nevada will start tracking prescription sales of hypnotic, narcotic, sedative and stimulant drugs.

All transactions will be electronically reported monthly to Atlantic Associates Inc. of Manchester, N.H., a data-collection agency.

"The main thing we will be looking for is the person who goes doctor hopping," said Keith Macdonald, executive secretary of the Nevada Board of Pharmacy. "We're look for the person, for example, who gets a narcotic drug 20 times a month."

Mike Messina, president of Atlantic Associates, said data will be reported directly to the Nevada pharmacy board and no one else -- not even law enforcement officials.

Macdonald said one person on the board will have access to information, which will be released as directed by the Controlled Substance Tracking Program Task Force.

The task force is made up of the Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Nevada Division of Investigations, Medicaid and various boards including dental examiners, homeopathic medical examiners, medical examiners, osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, podiatry and veterinary medicine examiners.

Practitioners associations include the Nevada Association of Homeopathic Physicians, Nevada Osteopathic Medical Association, Nevada Pharmacist Association, Nevada Podiatric Medical Association, Nevada Society of Hospital Pharmacist, Nevada State Dental Association, Nevada District Attorney Association, Nevada State Medical Association, the Pain Institute of Nevada, Sierra Anesthesia Associates and the Clark County district attorney's office.

"Every caution will be made for protecting the oncology patient, the AIDS patient and pain patients (who receive numerous prescription drugs)," Macdonald said. "There will be no added cost to consumers."

But Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, thinks this program has the potential to violate people's privacy and could lead to information falling into the wrong hands.

"Centralizing medical records is dangerous," Peck said. "When you centralize records, there is always the possibility of an agency getting access to them. And oftentimes it has been shown that these records are fraught with errors."

Macdonald said physicians will be notified when patients are reaching their thresholds for prescribed drugs. However, the program won't stop people from getting drugs from physicians in another state.

"This will also prohibit doctors from prescribing drugs willy-nilly," District Judge Jack Lehman said.

Lehman has been conducting Drug Court for the last four years. It is designed to take drug abusers out of the criminal justice system and place them in treatment programs.

Lehman said about 20 people out of the 800 he's presided over have been prescription-drug abusers.

"Prescription drug abuse is a major problem with middle-class women, especially with pain medications," said John Marr of the Choices Unlimited drug rehabilitation center. "I've had clients coming in who have had physicians writing as many as 30 different drug prescriptions."

Marr thinks some doctors, in trying to alleviate patients' pains, lose control of the treatment process. Patients gain control and freely get whatever pain-killing drugs they request.

"There are doctors in town who will give people a 30-day supply of pain killers, and then they'll come back in two weeks later and get more," Marr said.

Larry Matheis, executive director of the Nevada State Medical Association, said physicians have been supportive of the Controlled Substance Tracking Program since it was passed by the Legislature last year. Today, there is no system for stopping people from getting duplicate prescriptions filled.

"There's a cautious agreement (among doctors) to make this work," Matheis said. "They support it, as long as a patient's confidentiality can be maintained."

The program is costing the state about $150,000 a year, Macdonald said. Data will start going to the pharmacy board in February, and the program should be up and running by March, he said.

The following information will be collected on every prescription:

* Prescription number.

* National Association Board of Pharmacy (NABP) number.

* Patient's first and last name.

* Date dispensed.

* Metric quantity dispensed.

* National Drug Code (NDC) number.

* Estimated days supply.

* Physician's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) number and DEA suffix.

* Compound code.

archive