Ottiano Bill to Tighten Prescription Abuse Monitoring gets Senate Committee OK

The Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday passed a bill sponsored by Portsmouth Sen. Christopher S. Ottiano that would tighten the state's monitoring of drug prescriptions, sending the bill to the full senate for a final vote.

The bill, S-2523, would require medical professionals to register with the state's Prescription Monitoring Program in order to get a controlled substance registration.

It would also allow pharmacists to authorize a designee who is "qualified to access the information in accordance with rules promulgated by the Department of Health," according to the bill.

In other words, the bill would let prescribers appoint someone to check the database, which contains a record of all prescriptions for controlled substances in Rhode Island.

The database could be an important tool in the effort to reduce prescription drug use and abuse, but only 20 percent of those with controlled substance registrations are participating, the Providence Journal reported.

If Ottiano's bill becomes law, every prescribing practitioner would be required to participate, which means the rate of detection for duplicate prescriptions and people using more than one doctor to get extra drugs should increase by a large margin.

The bill is part of a package of bills being addressed by the General Assembly to address the addiction problem.