More PDMP violations!

Oregon state law requires that any pharmacy filling controlled substances, categories II – IV, report them to the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (DMP) within 72 hours of dispensing. It is almost monthly that I have to report some violation of these laws to the Oregon Board of Pharmacy and the PDMP and the violating pharmacy. Usually the pharmacy takes some action, but despite repeated violations of the laws, the Oregon Board of Pharmacy FAILS to take ANY action against these multi-million dollar corporations because they protect each other.

Today I reported OHSU for violating the law requiring the reporting of the prescriber of such medications. OHSU’s own pharmacy reported the prescriber as “OHSU” itself. Since when do buildings or institutions prescribe medications?! The actual doctor was listed in the chart notes of the patient, and I am sure was on the prescription, yet the OHSU pharmacy FAILED to note that on the PDMP, thus effectively enabling that physician to “hide” their prescribing habits from any reviewing agency!

Normally Walgreens has been very good at reporting such medications, yet two times last week I had to report two separate incidents for two patients where Walgreens FAILED to post the pain medications with the mandatory 72 hours. It was 28 DAYS later that it still wasn’t posted!

When it was reported to the pharmacy, they acted confused and like it was “our” problem and that they had “no way” to fix it. Since it is a recurring problem in the Douglas County area, all they needed to do was to contact another pharmacy to learn the re-submission procedures, because almost every pharmacy in Douglas County has at some point FAILED to report every single prescription properly and timely.