The Reporter newspaper, Camdenton Missouri

The Reporter covers Miller, Morgan and Camden County in Central Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks and is published once per week on Wednesdays.

Published July 11, 2018

City embraces Prescription Drug Monitoring Program

OSAGE BEACH – The city is moving forward in participating in a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) started by St. Louis County. The Board of Aldermen passed the first reading last week with four aldermen for the program and two against - Kevin Rucker and Phylliss Marose voted no.

Rucker had several concerns which he voiced to the board and one of them was regarding privacy. The privacy of an individual, in his opinion, could be compromised with this bill.

In addition, he said this should be a state run program and not something that a local city should do.

Alderman Gregory Massey said that when comparing health and safety to privacy, health and safety is more important than an individual’s privacy.

The program is not run by the State of Missouri or is part of the state but is a program started by St. Louis County in conjunctions with Appriss.

Appriss has three divisions: Appriss Health, Appriss Retail and Appriss Safety.

The summary of each of the three divisions are stated on the Appriss website.

Appriss Health: “Helping providers, pharmacists and healthcare organizations make better-informed decisions for early intervention and improved outcomes with our industry-leading data analytics and clinical decision support solutions.”

Appriss Retail: “Helping leading global retailers make better-informed, real-time decisions with unparalleled data science skills, expertise, and the world’s largest transaction database.”

Appriss Safety. “Helping government agencies and corporations anticipate, identify and manage people-driven risk with the nation’s most comprehensive and up-to-date arrest data network.”

The website for Appriss tells a little more about their beginnings.

“Appriss was founded in 1994 as the VINE company by Mike Davis, our CEO, and Yung Nguyen with a very simple belief: technology can do a lot of good in society… Our journey has taken us far beyond Kentucky, the home of our corporate headquarters, to now having offices in two continents and customers in 25 countries on 4 continents.”

The city Administrator (or someone they designate) is in charge of the program locally.

“The City Administrator shall coordinate and cooperate with St. Louis County to establish and maintain a PDMP for monitoring the prescribing and dispensing of all Schedule II, III, and IV controlled substances by professionals licensed to prescribe or dispense such substances in the City of Osage Beach, Missouri,” the ordinance states.

The PDMP will give information about drugs dispensed in the city limits to Appriss or to St. Louis County (and then on to Appriss. That information will clearly identify the person receiving the drugs and their name will be entered into the Appriss database.

The PDMP ordinance that Osage Beach is considering says:

(a) Electronic reporting required. Within seven business days of having dispensed a Schedule II, III, or IV controlled substance, a dispenser shall submit to the St Louis County PDMP program with which the City has a cooperating relationship information regarding such dispensing. The information shall be submitted electronically in a format required by the Director and in accordance with the transmission standards established by the American Society for Automation in Pharmacy or any of its successor organizations.
(b) Report contents. The information submitted for each dispensing shall, at minimum, include:
   (1) the pharmacy’s Drug Enforcement (DEA) number;
   (2) the date of dispensation;
   (3) if the substance was dispensed via prescription;
   (4) the prescription number or other unique identifier;
   (5) whether the prescription is new or a refill;
   (6) the prescriber’s DEA or National Provider Identifier (NPI) number;
   (7) the National Drug Code (NDC) of the drug dispensed;
   (8) the quantity and dosage of the drug dispensed; and
   (9) an identifier for the patient to whom the drug was dispensed, including but not
limited to any one of the following:
     a. the patient’s driver’s license number;
     b. the patient’s government-issued identification number;
     c. the patient’s insurance cardholder identification number; or
     d. the patient’s name, address, and date of birth.

The information is supposed to be confidential but will be available to the following people and organizations upon request to the Director, who is the Administrator to the St. Louis County PDMP Program.

“(a) Upon a duly-made request, the Director may provide dispensation information and other data compiled in connection with a PDMP only to the following:
     (1) persons, whether in or out of the State of Missouri, who are authorized to prescribe or dispense controlled substances, if the requesting person demonstrates that the request is made for the purpose of providing medical or pharmaceutical care for a patient;
     (2) persons who request their own dispensation information in accordance with law;
     (3) the Missouri State Board of Pharmacy;
     (4) any state board charged with regulating a professional authorized to prescribe or dispense controlled substances, and which has duly requested the information or data in the course of a current and open investigation into the acts of a specific professional under the jurisdiction of the state board. Only information related to the subject professional shall be provided by the Director;
     (5) local, state, and federal law enforcement or prosecutorial officials, both in or outside of Missouri, who are engaged in the administration, investigation, or enforcement of laws governing prescription drugs, based on a specific case and under a subpoena issued pursuant to court order;
    (6) The MO HealthNet division of the Missouri Department of Social Services regarding MO HealthNet program recipients; or
    (7) A judge or other judicial officer under a subpoena issued pursuant to court order.”

More information can be found on the St. Louis County website at www.stlouisco.com/PDMP

The city passed the first reading of the ordinance last week. The second reading should be held at the next BOA meeting.