Louisiana News: Prescription Monitoring Program

October 31, 2011 4:59 pm

Originally published in the October 2011 Louisiana Board of Pharmacy Newsletter

The Board knows that most pharmacies are diligent about reporting their dispensing transactions to the prescription monitoring program (PMP) database every week. PMP staff monitors that activity and sends gentle reminders when a report is overlooked or delayed. On rare occasions, the Board needs to provide a little firmer hand; examples can be seen later in this Newsletter. But the value of the program does not lie just in submitting transactions to the database. The best value of the program is achieved when pharmacists review the data prior to dispensing controlled substance prescriptions to their patients.

With respect to pharmacists registering to obtain access privileges to the PMP database, the Board knows that only 12% of the pharmacists have done so. There is no fee to register for PMP access privileges, nor is there a fee for accessing the database. The process to obtain PMP access privileges begins with a visit to the Board’s Web site at www.pharmacy.la.gov, then selecting the PMP window in the lower left margin. From the PMP home page, select the link for the RxSentry® Orientation Course. This is a short Web-based presentation about the system. You can then complete the Access Request Form for Dispensers and send that document to the Board of¬fice. After verifying everything is in order, PMP staff sends authorization for your account and access to the program vendor. You are then authorized to make queries of the database for your patients.

On June 30, 2011, the PMP program finished the fiscal year with some excess revenues, and the Board authorized the investment of those funds in software enhancements for the program. One of the upgrades will be to the telecommunication standard for data coming from pharmacies. Currently, the program only accepts data in the older ASAP-1995 standard. The Board intends to upgrade its capability to accept data in the newer ASAP-2007 standard. One of the primary advantages of that newer standard is the ability to make error corrections on single transactions instead of requiring re-transmission of entire batches. Another upgrade will prepare the program for the interstate sharing of PMP data. By the end of 2012, the Board anticipates providing data from multiple states in response to a single query. The Board will keep you posted on all of those new developments.