House Bill 21, the Florida Opioid prescription law, will be going into effect July 1, and marks a great change in how health care providers handle medication prescriptions. The bill, intended to make it much harder to be prescribed opioids and other scheduled drugs, was passed back in March, and will, among other things, provide instruction regarding a new official government website.
The website is part of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, and will feature a secure website that lists every prescription for a scheduled medicine along with the name and age of the patient, the name of the prescriber, the name of the pharmacy, and the date the medication was dispensed to the patient. This will hopefully make it more obvious when a pharmacy is moving large amounts of opioids. The bill will also limit prescriptions of opioids for post-surgery acute pain to 3-days without a doctor’s exemption and detailed request for a 7-day prescription.
HB 21, the Florida OPIOID prescribing law, goes into effect July 1, and will have far-reaching effects on how providers must review, document and prescribe medications for pain, anxiety, insomnia, attention deficit disorder, seizures, neuropathy, muscle spasm, diarrhea, low testosterone and severe cough.
Most of the drugs used to treat these illnesses are considered “scheduled drugs” by the Drug Enforcement Administration based on the drug’s potential for abuse or addiction, overall safety, and medical applications. HB 21 is adding more oversight and restrictions to the prescribing of these drugs.
Schedule I drugs, like heroin, LSD and peyote are considered dangerous, with severe abuse potential and no current medical use.
Schedule II drugs have a high potential for abuse and dependence. These include the pain medicines codeine, hydrocodone, morphine and oxycodone, as well as the ADHD drugs Adderall and Ritalin (brand names given). Click Here to Continue Reading
