September 2021
Has a doctor ever come into your hospital room with a nasty attitude even though you've never spoken to him? Has a pharmacist ever denied your prescription without an explanation? Have you ever had an initial appointment with a new doctor, only to have her treat you like you have addiction issues?
Ever wonder why that happens? It's very possible it is due to PDMP and/or Narxcare
-
FAQ: What are PDMP and Narxcare?
PDMP (Prescription Drug Monitoring Program) is a data base that records all controlled substance prescriptions including opioids, sleeping pills, ADHD medicine, muscle relaxers, anxiety medication, among some others. The first PDMP was developed in New York in 1918 and it is now in all 50 states. These data bases have been funded by the Department of Justice (to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars). The goal is to give healthcare professionals real-time access to your prescription history so they can make sure you're not "doctor shopping" or otherwise abusing your medication. Each state runs its own PDMP, usually by the HHS (Dept of Health and Human Services). Thanks to a company called Appriss, PDMP's are now interconnected between states.
With so much money put into PDMP's you'd think they actually have great results. Nope!
Some basic questions:
- Who enters your information into the PDMP? The pharmacist/pharmacy tech.
- Do you have real-time access to the PDMP? No. Each state has different rules. Contact your HHS and ask how you can see your PDMP history.
- Who has access to your PDMP? Pharmacies, doctors, hospitals, and in some states veterinarians and law enforcement.
- What's a risk score in the PDMP? This brings us to Narxcare. PDMP pulls from many different data bases (criminal history, financial history, school grades, Electronic Health Records, etc) to mix it all with your prescription history to spit out a risk score as to whether your doctor should prescribe to you or not.
Narxcare is a proprietary data analytics program that uses
up to 70 data points (that nobody knows) and mixes it with your prescription history to assign a 3 digit score letting your doctor or pharmacy know if you have a high risk of abuse or overdose.
When Bev Schechtman, a CPP, was denied opioids in the hospital for kidney stones due to having been abused as a child, she started researching why this would happen
. Read all about it and more in this article and see where Don't Punish Pain was mentioned in the Wired!
As you know, this organization is also run by CPP's. We are doing everything we can to fight for you.
********AND THAT'S WHERE YOU COME IN!!!********
Your donations allow us to advocate, educate, and legislate on behalf of the millions of pain patients and prescribers. So, if you can donate, even one dollar, please do so!! Lobbyists are costly but necessary in this process. We are working 24/7
Maia, the author of the Narxcare article, thinks it's possible for other media outlets to pick up the story. This is what we want! Please forward the
Narxcare article to your local media outlets and ask if they would be willing to cover the story.
Remember.....you keep fighting and we'll keep fighting!!
Reply to this e-mail with any questions or comments.
