JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Over 700 registered nurses and nursing students visited the Capitol today from each corner of the state for the Missouri Nurses Association’s (MONA) 29th Annual Nurse Advocacy Day.
One of the top issues that nurses advocated for was a prescription drug monitoring program. Rep. Holly Rehder, R-Sikeston, is sponsoring HB 130, which would would establish a program to monitor the prescribing and dispensing of all Schedule II-V controlled substances by all licenses professionals who prescribe or dispense these substances in Missouri. Currently, Missouri is the only state that does not have a drug monitoring program.
“Right now in Missouri a person can go to multiple doctors and get prescriptions for narcotics such as Oxycontin, Lorcet, and more,” Rehder recently shared with constituents. “Then that person can go to multiple pharmacies to get that medication filled. Once filled, they sell them on the streets. With Missouri being the only state without these controls in place, we have become a hot bed for this type of ‘doctor shopping’. According to the report by the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), prescription drug abuse is a top public health concern. They note that prescription drug related deaths now outnumber those from heroin and cocaine combined.”
MONA supports the program, saying Missouri has a significant problem with prescription drug abuse, yet Missouri is the only state in the nation that does not track addictive prescription drugs.
“Establishing a prescription drug monitoring program will curb abuse, save lives, and fight crime,” said the MONA Legislative & Regulatory Agenda.
Nurses Mary Davis from Liberty Hospital and Mary Susan Goodrich from Saint Luke’s Home Care & Hospice spoke to The Missouri Times about the importance of prescription drug monitoring.
Goodrich shared a story from 1987 where a patient brought in six different bottles of Percocet from six different pharmacies from six different doctors – all prescribed within a 3-month time. When she asked the doctor on duty about it, he simply said, “Well, you know, if another doctor is going to give it, another doctor is going to give it. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“I’ve had people say to me that if Dr. So-and-so at the ER at St. Luke’s isn’t going to give it to me, then I’m going to have to go to North Kansas City [Hospital],” Goodrich said of patient doctor-shopping.
The nurses shared that the lack of a monitoring system leads to the responsibility on doctors and medical facilities.
Davis shared some facilities have signs saying they will not prescribe certain medications, leading to patients walking into a facility for treatment and immediately leaving to go elsewhere. The nurses also shared that various hospitals have ‘do not admit’ or ‘do not prescribe’ lists.
But, the nurses concerns are not just for those abusing the system, but for patients who may not get the treatment that they may need because doctors have no way to monitor prescriptions to ensure their patients do not become addicted to medication.
“This program does a few different things while it monitors prescription drugs,” David said. “It makes physicians much less weary of prescribing if they can verify that a patient hasn’t had any narcotics in a time period. I’m worried that we have patients that are being under-treated because we do not have the ability to monitor the overuse.”
Rehder’s bill has garnered much support and has already been heard in the Senate Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety. It has been passed out of the House Health Insurance Committed and referred to the House Select Committee on Insurance.
“Missouri needs us to move forward with this common sense piece of legislation,” Rehder said.
MONA members were presented the 2015 Excellence in Health Care Legislation Awards to Rep. Jon Carpenter, D-Gladstone, and Rep. Donna Lichtenegger, R-Jackson.
MONA’s top legislative priorities include Medicaid expansion and transformation, broader prescriptive authority for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses, and gathering data on Missouri’s health care workforce.
According to MONA, Missouri has more than 100,000 professional nurses.
Rachael Herndon was the editor at The Missouri Times and also produced This Week in Missouri Politics, published Missouri Times Magazine, and co-hosted the #MoLeg podcast. She joined The Missouri Times in 2014, returning to political reporting after working as a campaign and legislative staffer.
Rachael studied at the University of Missouri – Columbia. She lives in Jefferson City with her husband, Brandon, and their two children.
