Maine has became the second state to mandate e-prescribing of controlled substances, as Gov. Paul LePage this week signed legislation aimed at curtailing opioid abuse.
The new law will require prescribers and pharmacists to check the state’s prescription monitoring program before prescribing or dispensing a controlled drug. It also limits the strength and duration of scripts for opioids and requires opioid prescribers to complete three hours of addiction training every two years.
Last month, e-prescribing became mandatory for all prescription drugs in New York state. Minnesota has had a law calling for e-prescribing of controlled substances since 2010, but there’s no true means of enforcing the requirement.
The Maine e-prescribing requirement for opioids and benzodiazepines takes effect in July 2017, though prescribers may petition the state’s Department of Health and Human Services for a waiver, according to LePage’s office. The caps on prescriptions — seven days for acute pain and 30 days for chronic pain — start in January 2017.
There’s also a limit on strength of opioid scripts for new patients of 100 morphine milligram equivalents. This law allows exceptions for hospice and palliative care, as well as for cancer-related pain.
Maine is the third state to institute such a cap; Massachusetts and Washington set a maximum of 120 MMEs, LePage’s office said.
“This is a prevention bill and it is designed to get at one of the root causes of the heroin crisis in Maine,” Dr. Christopher Pezzullo, chief health officer of Maine DHHS, said in a statement.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
E-prescribing connectivity network Surescripts said that 85 percent of the electronic health records used by prescribers in Maine are able to meet Drug Enforcement Agency requirements for EPCS. However, only 1 percent of prescribers in the state were ready to use the technology and 1 percent of scripts for controlled substances were sent electronically in 2015, according to Surescripts.
