Representative Jim Neely's Capitol Report
House Gives First-Round Approval to Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (HB 188)
The Missouri House has given initial approval to legislation meant to provide a tool to help the state address the prescription drug abuse epidemic. Known as the Narcotics Control Act, the bill would create a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program to allow medical providers to spot any concerning trends in their patients’ narcotics history.
Missouri is the only state without a monitoring program in place. The program isn’t a “silver bullet” that will end the abuse of opioids and other prescription drugs, but instead is a tool that will help fight such abuse.
Giving providers a tool to spot abuse will allow them to intervene with options for the patient – alternative care, treatment, medication-assisted treatment. We have many options now available producing excellent outcomes. We need our medical professionals seeing this before the patient gets too far down the road. The program can also protect patients and prescribers from unsafe combinations. It’s not uncommon for a patient to have prescriptions from multiple providers, and that some combinations can be lethal.
The Narcotics Control Act would require the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to establish and maintain a program to monitor the prescribing and dispensing of all Schedule II through Schedule IV controlled substances. The bill would require information on these drugs being prescribed and dispensed to be reported within 24 hours. By the year 2022 the information would be updated in real time.
Missouri is not the nation’s leader in prescription drug abuse, but is instead in the middle of the pack, which some say is proof that prescription drug monitoring programs don’t have a huge impact in preventing abuse. Other opponents express concerns with the potential for the database with private patient information to be hacked and accessed.
In response to the security concerns, the bill contains numerous protections to ensure data is encrypted so that private information remains private. The program is protected by federal HIPAA law, just as all other electronic medical records, which haven’t been breached since they came into existence in the 1930s. A monitoring program will not allow anyone to be authorized to see medical data that isn’t already authorized.
The bill had many amendments offered and debate on the bill took several hours; it now requires another vote in the House before moving to the Senate.
House Approves Court Reform Bill (HB 67)
Legislation to implement important reforms for Missouri’s municipal courts is now on its way to the Senate. House members this week approved a bill that would allow a court to order credit for time served when an individual is held in custody because of a minor traffic violation.
Senate Bill 5 passed in 2015 was meant to ensure that minor traffic violations would not result in jail time. Despite the change, people who don’t show up for a court date or don’t pay a fine can still end up serving time in jail. The legislation approved this week is meant to supplement Senate Bill 5 by allowing the court to order credit for time served.
The bill will help reduce court dockets and note that it is fair to waive fines and costs for defendants who must stay in jail for minor traffic offenses because they lack funds.
