The state medical society has signed on to a plan to improve the existing prescription drug monitoring program in the state.

But they question a proposal that has been put forth which they consider too cumbersome and time-consuming without sufficient payoff.

The Medical Society of the State of New York says its members agree that the abuse and diversion of pain medications is a serious public health threat and must be addressed.

MSSNY has worked closely with the Department of Health, which operates the existing prescription drug monitoring program, to improve accessibility to the database and to make the information contained in it more reliable.

“We believe that the DOH is on track to assure these changes are made. In a more perfect world, that should be the end of the story,” said a statement from the medical society.

“This issue, however, has become highly political. What is being discussed is a requirement for physicians and other prescribers to consult the database each and every time they write a prescription for a controlled substance to make sure that the patient before them isn't doctor shopping for drugs. All patients. All controlled substances.”

The physicians’ organizations is raising questions about the plan’s purpose, as it requires:

• a busy pediatrician's practice to consult the database for all children who come in for their monthly prescription for ADHD medication;

• an oncology practice to consult the database for each cancer patient in need of pain relief;

• a psychiatrist to consult the database each time she is going to write a prescription for Valium or Xanax for a person with anxiety disorder;

• a primary care physician to check the database before prescribing Lyrica for a patient he has treated for 20 years who suffers from post neuralgic pain related to diabetes;

• a surgeon to consult the database before he prescribes post-operative pain medicine.

The Medical Society also questions the efficacy of the plan’s requirements to check on all patients they expect to see at the beginning of the day – “a process that ignores the fact that many of the patients will not be prescribed controlled substances and that patients may be added to the schedule during the day. Furthermore, they do not realize that the physician's electronic health record system cannot seamlessly connect to the database. It takes between 4-8 minutes to click out of the EHR, log onto the database, download the information, and then get back into the electronic health record.”

“The Medical Society is very concerned that an across-the-board a duty to consult the database in all instances is so onerous that physicians and other prescribers will modify their prescribing practices, causing real access problems for patients. Many patient advocates agree.”

“We believe strongly that the remedy for this problem must not be so draconian as to result in prescribers radically changing their prescribing practices. This would create difficulty for those patients in need of controlled substance medication.”