GOVERNOR PROPOSES COMPREHENSIVE DRUG LEGISLATION
Governor Earl Ray Tomblin had introduced today proposed legislation to stop misuse and abuse of prescription drugs. Introduced in the Senate as Senate Bill 437 and in the House of Delegates as House Bill 4336, the 83-page bill addresses multiple components make up prescribing, administering, dispensing and use of controlled substances. Each bill is referred to the Health and Human Resources Committee and Judiciary Committee of each house. Both committees in each house must approve the proposed legislation before it can go before it goes to the floor of both chambers for passage.
The proposal contains recommendations from the Governor's Substance Abuse Advisory Council, Substance Abuse Task Forces, healthcare practitioners licensing boards, professional healthcare associations and Dept. of Health and Human Resources officials.
WVPA Executive Director Richard Stevens was appointed by the Governor to serve on one of the six Substance Abuse Task Forces and participated in meetings with the chief executive's staff in drafting the legislation.
Below are some of the highlights of Governor Tomblin's proposed legislation.
>Regulation of opioid treatment programs
>Requiring clinical guidelines for opioid treatment program facilities
>Establishing education and training requirements for treatment facility staff
>Requiring clinical monitoring of opioid treatment programs
>Updating licensing and oversight of chronic pain management clinics
>Limiting dispensing of controlled substances at pain management clinics
>Providing for suspension or revocation of license of pain management clinics
>Requiring healthcare practitioners to complete drug diversion training
>Requiring practitioners complete training for best practices for prescribing
>Requiring valid practitioner-patient relationship prior to prescribing or dispensing
>Requiring submission of data to controlled substance reporting system within 24 hours
>Requiring training of certain law enforcement agencies to access prescription data
>Requiring Board of Pharmacy to issue certain reports of data in monitoring program
>Creating a Controlled Substance Monitoring Program Database Review Committee
>Permitting practitioners to notify law enforcement of violations with immunity
>Multi-state real-time tracking of pseudoephedrine products without cost to pharmacies
>Establishing criminal penalties for possession of certain quantities of pseuodeophedrine
>Permitting random and warrantless inspection of reported data by authorities
Complete text of Senate Bill 437 and House Bill 4336 can be accessed on the Legislature's
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Letter to WV Legislature Joint Committee on Government Organization from Richard Stevens Regarding Antiquated Generic Substitution Provision
Current pharmacy law as it relates to a certain provision for generic substitution is antiquated. It has out-lived its usefulness and is counter-productive to saving consumers money on their prescription drugs.
Briefly, current law states when generic substitution is permitted, the savings passed on to the “purchaser” has to be at least the difference in the acquisition cost of the brand prescribed and the generic product dispensed.
The complexities and ambiguities of current law make enforcement by the Board of Pharmacy and compliance by pharmacists difficult if not impossible. For example, the Board regulates mail order pharmacies but does not investigate whether or not out-of-state mail order houses are passing legally required savings on to consumers. Read more.
Preparing for Medicare Part D in 2012
A report by Richard Stevens, WVPA Executive Director
I am pleased to report of a webinar hosted by NCPA which I attended on December 8. WVPA members will find this Medicare Part D information beneficial. See attached.