After nearly a decade, Florida doctors can now check out their patients’ prescription drug history in an online database aimed at curbing “doctor-shopping” and other illicit pain pill abuses.
The Elecronic – Florida Online Reporting of Conrolled Substances Evaluation (E-FORCSE) went live today after narrowly escaping being killed earlier this year by Gov. Rick Scott and other high-ranking GOP lawmakers.
After today, doctors can tap into the database to view their patients’ prescription drug history and view when and where they filled their prescription and who wrote it. Law enforcement officials will be able to access the database to investigate drug-related crimes.
Supporters of the system, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and state Surgeon General Frank Farmer, hope doctors use the database even though they aren’t required to. Bondi was instrumental in getting lawmakers to reach an agreement over the database this spring.
The Florida Medical Association and the Florida Osteopathic Medical Association are asking their members to participate.
“The prescription database is perhaps the single most important patient safety program to launch in recent memory,” Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said in a statement. Fasano has tried for nearly a decade to get the database up-and-running. Lawmakers were so skittish about the database they forbade the use of state money to create and operate it. The Prescription Drug Program Monitoring Foundation, the non-profit organization footing the bill for the system, and the state have received $800,000 in federal grants for the database.
“After many years and many obstacles to overcome, the database is going live at a time when it is needed most. Although we will never know the number of lives that will be saved, we will know that many lives will not be lost as long as the database is consulted by every doctor every time he or she considers writing a controlled substance prescription,” Fasano said.
Gov. Rick Scott has signed into law pill mill bill banning doctors from dispensing most narcotics, tracking wholesale distribution of most highly addictive pain medications and keeping intact the state’s prescription drug database.
Scott says the new law will be a model for the nation.
“I am proud to sign this bill which cracks down on the criminal abuse of prescription drugs,” Scott, on a three-city ceremonial bill signing tour today, said in a statement. “This legislation will save lives in our state and it marks the beginning of the end of Florida’s infamous role as the nation’s Pill Mill Capital.”
Lawmakers approved HB 7095 after a contentious struggle over the future of the state’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, a yet-to-be-implemented database aimed at cracking down on “doctor-shopping” and illicit prescription drug sales.
Attorney General Pam Bondi was instrumental in bringing House and Senate GOP leaders together on the final deal, passed in the final days of the legislative session that ended last month.
GOP legislative leaders are in a standoff on a pill mill crackdown with less than 36 hours left until the session is expected to end.
Sen. Mike Fasano, the Senate’s pill mill bill sponsor, said he could not get House counterpart Robert Schenck, R-Spring Hill, to agree to a compromise proposal incorporating much of Schenck’s plan, including a ban on doctors dispensing narcotics and imposing new permitting restrictions on pharmacies.
Fasano also agreed to ban pharmaceutical companies from contributing to the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, something Gov. Rick Scott has insisted on. Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has offered $1 million to the foundation responsible for paying for the database.
But Schenck sent back a dozen components he wanted in the bill, including a cap on the amount of doses of highly addictive medications that pharmacies can dole out, Fasano said.
Fasano won’t agree to the dosage caps because, he said, they are few below what hospices and pharmacies catering to cancer hospitals need to treat patients in chronic pain.
Instead, Fasano is returning to his original plan to strip the House bill, approved 116-1 last month, and put on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s language tightening penalties on rogue doctors and clinics and reducing the number of days dispensers have to report information to the prescription drug database from 14 to 7 days.
But Scott and House leaders, including Speaker Dean Cannon, have insisted on a comprehensive plan that would include restrictions on wholesalers, pharmacies and doctors to curb the illicit prescription drug market in Florida that some say has been responsible for a national prescription drug addiction crisis.
“We’ve made an offer to them but they’re thus far reluctant to accept it. So my goal is at a minimum to get the language that would enhance the penalties, go after unscrupulous doctors, unscrupulous pill mill owners, all of the AG language along with reducing the requirement of reporting to the PDMP form 14 days to 7 days,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said. “Right now that’s what I’d like to do but nothing’s definite.”
Read more of the differences between Schenck and Fasano after the jump. (more…)
Gov. Rick Scott, in Washington for the White House Correspondents Dinner, and Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared on FoxNews shortly after noon today to tell the nation what Florida’s doing to crack down on pill mills.
Florida’s proliferation of pill mills has become national news as attorneys general and governors around the nation blame the Sunshine State for rising prescription drug addiction problems.
Scott blamed his fellow Republican predecessors for the drug woes.
“We haven’t had enough focus,” he said.
Scott also touted the House’s pill mill plan, much broader than the Senate proposal, that would limit distribution of highly addictive narcotics and bar doctors from dispensing most powerful pain medications.
“We’re going to start from the manufacturer, to the distributor, to the doctor, to the user. We’re going to stop this,” Scott said. “We’ve got a comprehensive plan to deal with all these things. We’re going to track all of it and we’re going to stop it.”
Bondi, who before her election as AG was a frequent contributor on Fox, bragged about the state’s prescription drug database while emphasizing its privacy component, a concern of Scott who early on wanted to scrap the program. Bondi pushed both Scott and House Speaker Dean Cannon to allow the Prescription Monitoring Program to get up and running to “prevent people from going to doctor shopping,” as she told Fox today.
By a 116-1, the Florida House approved its plan to crack down on rogue doctors and rein in prescription drug abuse.
The measure keeps the state’s drug database and most current regulation of pain clinics and but bars doctors from dispensing narcotics from their offices, something the Florida Medical Association opposes. The plan (HB 7095) also sets new permitting requirements for pharmacies and limits the amount of highly addictive pain medications pharmacies can give out.
The measure received bipartisan support, including from lawmakers who testified about how addiction problems have personally affected their families.
“I stand here as one of those that’s involved with a family member” addicted to OxyContin, Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, said. “I will tell you it’s devastating on everyone who comes in contact with it. I’ve had many sleepless nights on this issue.
My wife and I have cried together, prayed together. There may be a couple things in this bill we don’t like. There always is. But this bill will do great, great things to protect our young kids…I know there’s other members in here who’ve had to deal with this…It’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrible.”
The plan has the support of both Gov. Rick Scott, who originally opposed the drug database and wanted lawmakers to repeal it, and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The Senate’s version of the pill mill legislation (SB 818) does not include the ban on doctor dispensing or the new pharmacy regulations.
Once a foe of the state’s prescription drug database, Gov. Rick Scott boasted to a Congressional panel today about his administration’s efforts to get the system up and running.
Scott appeared before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade in a hearing entitled “Warning: The Growing Danger of Prescription Drug Diversion” chaired by U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack, whose son Chesare was addicted to the powerful narcotic oxycodone.
Scott highlighted the “strike force” he established last month and focused on state lawmakers’ current efforts to cut off the source of the drugs by proposing strict regulation of distribution and dispensation of pain medications in Florida.
“The goal is clear. Target the sources of these drugs before they hit the streets,” Scott, joined by Kentucky Gov. Steve Bashear, testified.
Much of the hour-long panel featuring the two governors focused on what Florida is doing to prevent addictive pain killers from getting in the hands of drug dealers and combat prescription drug abuse.
Doctors need to be limited in the quantities of the drugs they prescribe and what they prescribe them for, Scott repeatedly said.
“The biggest thing we need to look at is regulating these manufacturers and what should these drugs be allowed to be used for,” Scott said. “The first thing is why are they even able to sell these things? There…should be a much more limited purpose that they can use these things for.”
Scott will join Gov. Steve Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat, at the hearing entitled “Warning: The Growing Danger of Prescription Drug Diversion” at the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade chaired by Rep. Mary Bono Mack.
Scott, who previously asked lawmakers for a repeal of the statewide prescription drug database law enforcement officials say is crucial in cracking down on prescription drug abuse, yesterday signed off on the latest state House pill mill bill that would keep the database, restrict doctors’ ability to dole out the drugs and establish new standards for pharmacies. The compromise raises hopes that the House and Senate will strike a deal on pill mill legislation before the session ends on May 6.
The House budget committee unanimously approved a pill mill compromise of sorts with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s blessing but over the objections of small pharmacists.
“We’re going to make a difference. We’re going to see a difference. You are going to give us the tools…to come in and shut down these drug dealers,” Bondi told the committee.
The omnibus measure, released late Monday, includes a slew of new regulations for pharmacies and doctors even as House GOP leaders are deregulating other professions.
The proposal, opposed by the Florida Medical Association, would require nearly all health care professionals, including doctors, to register with the state to be able to prescribe controlled substances, require that they use tamper-proof prescription pads, and force them to keep a log of all pain medications prescribed and give the log to law enforcement officials if requested.
But the plan received the most opposition from independent pharmacists, who would be subject to more strident permitting requirements than retail chains.
“You call this the pill mill bill. It might have originally been that. But this is really an anti-small pharmacy bill,” said pharmacist Linda Bezick of Greenville.
But lawmakers said the measure is necessary to help reverse the number of prescription overdoses in Florida, estimated at seven a day.
Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, said that one of his family members is struggling with prescription pill addiciton.
“If we don’t pass this bill, we’re going to watch our kids die,” he said.
A rewrite of the House’s plan to shut down pill mills brings the chamber closer to the Senate, bringing a standoff between GOP legislative leaders closer to resolution.
The House’s latest plan, which will be voted on by the budget committee this morning, keeps the current pill mill regulations, maintains the prescription drug database House Speaker Dean Cannon and Gov. Rick Scott previously wanted to scrap, and limits the amount of narcotic prescription doses pharmacies can dispense. Senate President Mike Haridopolos has refused to back down from his support for the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, now underway after two years in limbo.
The strike-all amendment on the bill (HB 7095), which will be introduced this morning, also prohibits doctors from dispensing all Schedule II and III medications. Those include highly addictive oxycodone and hydrocodone.
And the proposal also requires all doctors and health care practitioners except those treating chronic, non-cancer patients to register with the state before they can prescribe controlled substances. The Senate’s plan does not include the limitations on doctors.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who supports the House revision, is expected to testify before the committee at 10:30.
The state’s long-awaited prescription drug database is back on track after state health officials signed a final order today in a bid dispute keeping the program in limbo for months.
The Department of Health signed the order moving forward with the contract with Health Information Design Inc., the Alabama-based company that twice won administrative challenges, although Gov. Rick Scott – who scrapped the database in his budget proposal – remains dubious about it.
“The concerns he’s voiced still remain. He’s concerned about patient privacy and wants to make sure that funding this thing never ends up on the backs of taxpayers. He still doesn’t think it’s the silver bullet that so many proponents claim,” Scott spokesman Brian Hughes said.
Those proponents include law enforcement officials from the state’s top cop, Attorney General Pam Bondi, to Palm Beach County state attorney Michael McAuliffe, and Senate President Mike Haridopolos.
“Stopping pill mills has been my top priority since I took office, and the prescription drug monitoring program that the Department of Health will now be implementing is an important tool in combating this crisis,” Bondi said in a statement. “As part of a criminal investigation, the program will enable law enforcement to act more quickly in identifying and arresting pill mill operators.”
“The database will provide ‘shock and awe’ in Florida’s efforts to end the criminal abuse of legal prescription drugs,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said in a press release. “In addition to the Senate’s commitment to the database, pending legislation will strengthen the prescription drug monitoring program and provide even stronger privacy protections for individual Floridians.”
The House’s latest proposal that would give retailers like Walgreens and CVS exclusive rights to dispense highly addictive pain medications is a no-go in the Senate, Senate President Mike Haridopolos said Wednesday afternoon.
The House Judiciary Committee approved the measure (HB 7095) this morning by a 12-6 vote, deepening the divide between the two chambers’ leaders over how best to crack down on pill mills.
Haridopolos insists on getting the state’s prescription drug database up and running despite his House counterpart Speaker Dean Cannon’s push to have it repealed.
The House’s latest plan to limit distribution of the narcotics by prohibiting doctors from being able to dispense them likely won’t go anywhere in the Senate, said Haridopolos, whose wife is a doctor.
“I don’t have a lot of hope for that one. We’re not even going in that direction,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said this afternoon at his weekly briefing with reporters.
The House gave retail pharmacies a boost this morning in its approach to reining in pill mills by going after rogue distributors.
Rep. Robert Schenck, sponsor of the bill (HB 7095), offered an amendment that would limit dispensation of narcotics to pharmacies that are publicly traded, have more than $100 million of taxable assets in Florida or have been in operation continuously for at least a decade.
The measure would also require the use of tamper-proof prescription pads or electronic prescribing for all controlled substances.
Schenck’s amendment, approved by the House Judiciary Committee this morning, also goes a bit easier on dispensing docs than his previous proposal which would have banned them from dispensing virtually any medications. Under Schenck’s new plan, only the pharmacies could dole out Schedule II and III drugs. Schedule II drugs iclude highly addictive narcotics like oxycodone and hydrocodone, morphine, and codeine. Schedule 3 drugs include sedatives and steroid compounds. (more…)
A Senate committee this morning unanimously approved a measure strengthening the state’s yet-to-be-implemented prescription drug database and creating harsher penalties for pill mills, one of Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s top priorities.
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee also stripped out a measure that would have created made it easier for doctors to prescribe tamper-proof narcotics that prevent drug addicts from crushing the pills to snort or inject the pain meds. Most generic drug manufacturers wanted that out of the bill because no generic drugs yet come in tamper-proof form.
Bondi urged the committee to pass the bill (SB 818) to make it easier for her and other prosecutors to crack down on rogue pain management clinics and doctors.
Bondi said she’s “never seen anything like” the illicit pain medication epidemic in her 20 years as a prosecutor in Tampa and stressed the need for the prescription drug database opposed by Gov. Rick Scott and House Speaker Dean Cannon. A House committee recently approved a measure that would repeal the database created by lawmakers two years ago. Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, is refusing to back down from his support for the database.
“It’s unreal. It’s everywhere you go,” she said. “We need a comprehensive plan. We need the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.”
Bondi said drug dealers thwarted by a prescription drug database in their state are flocking to the Sunshine State to purchase drugs and sell them in Appalachia.
Sen. Mike Fasano, the bill’s sponsor, also pushed the committee to sign off on his proposal.
“There’s not a person in this room today…that hasn’t been affected by this epidemic,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said.
Senate President Mike Haridopolos is refusing to back down from his insistence that the state’s prescription drug database get up and running despite opposition from Gov. Rick Scott and House Speaker Dean Cannon.
A House committee last week passed a bill repealing the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program lawmakers created two years ago but yet to be implemented. A separate bill would also scrap all of the oversight of the pill mills.
“How do I say this nicely. We have a law on the books. It’s a database. If we choose not to fund it with taxpayer dollars, whatever happens there, we have secured private sector dollars,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said when asked if he supports the House’s elimination of pill mill regulation. I understand how laws are passed and it has to pass both chambers. We are not going to adjust the database. We believe it’s a very good idea. I strongly believe that we have to get a handle on this…We have no interest whatsoever of scrapping that database.”
Haridopolos said he tapped his “good friend” Sen. Mike Fasano, an ardent supporter of the database who sponsored much of the legislation cracking down on pill mills, to negotiate with the House on the issue.
“We’re the pill mill capitol of the world probably. We need to stop it. We have a device that other states have used successfully…I’m very comfortable with where we’re at,” Haridopolos said.
UPDATE: Gov. Scott’s spokesman Brian Hughes said his boss never tried to return the $1 million donation to the private, non-profit Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Foundation.
“If the senator wanted an answer to his question, he should have called us,” Hughes said.
Scott “never communicated any opinion” about the grant to Purdue or the foundation, Hughes said.
“The decision is up to the foundation,” he said.
Does Gov. Rick Scott have the authority to reject a $1 million donation to a private foundation created by lawmakers to create the prescription drug database the governor opposes?
That’s what Sen. Mike Fasano, an ardent supporter of the yet-to-be-implemented Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, publicly asked Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander at a budget committee meeting this afternoon.
Fasano said he’s had no direct contact with Scott – “that’s no surprise,” he said -but had seen news reports that Scott was not interested in the $1 million Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the highly addictive pain pills Oxycontin, offered to give to the foundation created to pay for the drug database.
“Does the governor have the right to reject that money?” Fasano asked.
Alexander diplomatically dealt with Fasano’s inquiry.
“I’m not sure,” the Lake Wales Republican, who’s had his own differences with Scott about his sale of the state’s planes, replied. “I share your concern. I certainly voted for and supported the effort to rein in the prescription drug mills.”
A House committee, with House Speaker Dean Cannon’s blessing, approved a measure yesterday repealing the drug database law enforcement officials believe is crucial in cracking down on prescription drug abuse.
Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, piled on.
She asked the committee to find out how much the state is paying to prosecute and lock up drug dealers associated with pill mills.
The House Health and Human Services Committee passed a measure that would scrap the state’s yet-to-be-implemented prescription drug database.
The committee approved the bill (PCB HHSC 11-04) with a 12-5 vote after hearing testimony from supporters of the database law enforcement officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, believe is necessary to crack down on prescription drug abuse.
Port St. Lucie vice mayor Linda Bartz urged the committee to vote against the measure, tearfully sharing the story of her daughter’s struggle with narcotics. Bartz said she had her daughter arrested to save her life.
“I believed when I had her arrested as I believe today that she was facing imminent death from a drug overdose,” she said. She said her daughter was able to get the drugs by “doctor shopping,” which the database is designed to reduce.
“I’m one of the lucky ones. My daughter is not one of the seven yet,” Bartz said.
But committee chairman Robert Schenck, R-Spring Hill, said the database, not yet in operation, is not working and, like Gov. Rick Scott, believes it is an invasion of privacy.
“The database simply tracks the problem of most law abiding citizens and at the expense of sacrificing our privacy,” he said.
The database has House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, and Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, at odds. Cannon wants to scrap it while Haridopolos wants it up and running and is willing to pay to keep it going. Current law forbids any state money from being spent on creation or maintenance of the drug-tracking system.
The measure (PCB HHSC 11-03) would also allow felons to own and operate “pill mills,” a prohibition lawmakers passed two years ago after it was reported that some of the clinics were owned by convicted drug dealers.
The committee is getting ready to pass a second measure (PCB HHSC 11-04) that would repeal the state’s yet-to-be implemented prescription drug database.
Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, has insisted he wants to get the database up and running and is willing to spend the $500,000 a year to operate it although lawmakers barred any state money to fund the program.
CORRECTION: The House Majority Office data about the number of dispensing practitioners in Florida is incorrect. The actual number is 156, not 56, according to House Speaker Dean Cannon’s spokeswoman Katherine Betta. She also point out that although Florida’s dispensing practitioners comprise only 11% of those who hand out oxycodone nationally, but they dispense 85% of the oxycodone sold by practitioners in the U.S.
With House Speaker Dean Cannon‘s blessing, a House committee is preparing to abolish all oversight of the state’s pain management clinics and repeal a controversial prescription drug database law enforcement officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, believe is crucial in combating illicit narcotic trafficking.
The House Health and Human Services Committee Chairman is slated to vote on two bills (PCB HHSC 11-03, PCB HHSC 11-04) at an 8 a.m. meeting this morning that would repeal current laws regulating pain management clinics in an effort to crack down on pill mills and impose restrictions on the types of drugs doctors would be allowed to dispense.
One of the bills would bar Florida doctors registered as “dispensing practitioners” from handing out Schedule II, III, IV or V drugs, including highly addictive oxycodone and methodone.
But critics of the measure, pushed by committee chairman Robert Schenck, R-Spring Hill, say it will do little to keep the narcotics out of the hands of drug dealers because most of the prescription drugs are dispensed by pharmacies.
“The prescription drug database can be an important part of the fight against pill mills. Hopefully this ruling will end needless delays to the implementation of Florida’s database,” Bondi said in a statement.
Bondi’s continued support for the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program puts her squarely at odds with fellow Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who wants lawmakers to repeal the yet-to-be-implemented system.
Bondi has made prescription drug abuse one of her top priorities and has become the state’s top official fighting the proliferation of pill mills after Scott scrapped the governor’s office of drug control.
Law enforcement officials insist the database will help cut down on “doctor shopping” and reduce the proliferation of narcotics on the street.
UPDATE: Department of Health spokeswoman Michelle Dahnke didn’t reveal much about how the agency will proceed with the database after the judge’s ruling.
“The Department will determine our next steps following a review of the ruling,” she wrote in an e-mail.
An administrative law judge today dismissed a bid protest that kept the state’s controversial drug database from being implemented but the program hailed by law enforcement officials remains in limbo.
In a 71-page order, DOAH Judge Robert Meale ruled that the Department of Health didn’t do anything wrong by awarding the bid to Health Information Designs. Competitor Optimum Technology challenged the bid, saying the department erred in calculating the companies’ proposals.
Under the Health Information Designs contract, the database will cost $887,059 to get up and running. Optimum’s bid – $565,044 – didn’t win because the company scored lower overall. The case is now closed.
The judge’s ruling paves the way for department officials to move forward with the database, but that’s unlikely to happen because Gov. Rick Scott wants lawmakers to repeal the law they passed two years ago creating it – even though they also prohibited the use of any state funds to underwrite it.
