AMCP Applauds HHS's Move to Address Opioid Related Overdoses, Deaths and Dependency

PRESS RELEASE

The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) supports the Department of Health & Human Services’ proposal announced last week to reduce opioid related misuse, overutilization and abuse by, among other things, developing new guidelines for prescribing opioids, boosting prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) and further adopting electronic prescribing practices.

AMCP Chief Executive Officer Edith A. Rosato, RPh, IOM, issued the following statement:

“We support HHS’s efforts to expand prescription drug monitoring programs and real-time data sharing, as well as to better integrate information into electronic health records among health professionals. AMCP would encourage HHS to go even further by allowing health plans and other appropriate managed care stakeholders to have access to this information as part of a coordinated effort to help patients and reduce the burden of opioid-related overdoses and dependency.“Outside of HHS’s latest proposal, AMCP urges passage of legislation that would allow Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage prescription drug plans to limit patients with a history of abuse to a single prescriber and/or pharmacy (or chain of pharmacies), similar to what already occurs in the private market and the Medicaid program.”

The Academy’s position paper on controlled substances can be found

here

.