MDToolbox Blog: Pennsylvania Joins in Combating Opioid Epidemic

----- Blog Index / Pennsylvania-Joins-in-Combating-Opioid-Epidemic [MDToolbox Staff] [2018-11-14]

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf recently signed Act 96 into law. This mandates Pennsylvania providers to electronically prescribe controlled substances II-V within a year of the bill passing.

The goal is to eliminate fraud associated with written prescriptions. Per the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), in 2016, there were 2,235 opioid-related overdose deaths in Pennsylvania. Prescription opioid overdoses alone increased from 411 to 729 deaths since 2010 [1].  The bill focuses on illegal drug diversion and combating the opioid epidemic. Between June 2017 and June 2018, eight drug gang arrests for illegal paper prescriptions were made in Pennsylvania, totaling more than 60,000 illegally diverted opioid prescriptions[2].

Providers who do not follow suit with the new law can face charges of $100 up to $5,000 per year. However, there are some exceptions which include:

• When electronic prescribing is unavailable due to temporary technological or electrical failure
• Prescriptions issued by a practitioner and dispensed by a pharmacy located outside the Commonwealth
• Prescriptions issued by a practitioner in an emergency department or health care facility when an electronic prescription would be impractical or would cause undue delay
• For a patient in a hospice, nursing home or residential health care facility
• For controlled substance compounded prescriptions and prescriptions containing elements that are not able to be accomplished with electronic prescribing
• For a prescription issued pursuant to a valid collaborative practice agreement, a standing order or a drug research protocol
• For a prescription issued in an emergency situation
• The pharmacy receiving the prescription is not set up to process electronic prescriptions; and
• For controlled substances that are not required to be reported to the prescription monitoring program system.

If providers do not meet an exception, they do have the option to apply for an exemption based upon economic hardship, technical limitations, or exceptional circumstances.

Pennsylvania now aligns with many other states headed towards mandating electronic prescribing. MDToolbox looks forward to working with providers throughout Pennsylvania to ease the transition and help provide tools and resources in combating the opioid epidemic. With MDToolbox providers have access to tools such as Electronic Prescribing of Controlled Substances (EPCS) and convenient on the go mobile e-prescribing.  Contact us for more information or to start your free 30 day free trial.