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House Bill 1 in Kentucky

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Submitted By baconbits49
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Kentucky House Bill 1 Kentucky House Bill 1 is an infringement on our basic civil rights because the Kentucky State Government is now involved with regulating what doctors can and can not prescribe; it denies access to medicine for lower socio-economic level patients, illegal, and legal substitutes will replace prescription medications and random urine tests and pill counts make patients guilty until proven innocent. The goal of this piece of legislation is to address the prescription drug abuse problem by limiting the availability of certain controlled substances through increased regulation and oversight. In order to uphold this Bill many people will have to give up their basic rights so that Kentucky Law Enforcement can crack down on any suspicious activity within the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
One of the most important rights we have as Americans is our right to doctor patient confidentiality. The doctor patient confidentiality agreement was set in place so doctors could treat their patients as they see fit. Kentucky State Legislators do not believe that doctors are doing everything in their power to help stem the drug problem that has been killing people here for over 20 years. So their answer was KASPER, “Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting” system. This system was designed to track prescribed controlled substances and doctor visits. For example, if you were to feel extreme back pain you would go to your doctor, and he/she would write up a prescription and have you sign a contract saying you would not abuse or sell the prescription. The doctor then would send all of your medical information into this system. You would then go to your pharmacy and drop off your prescription, the pharmacy would check your information through the Kasper system to make sure there were no irregularities. You then would receive your prescription and Kasper would know if you tried to see another doctor or pharmacy for the same problem. This system in and of it’s self is a very necessary tool in helping doctors, pharmacist, and law enforcement share information so that addicted doctor shoppers can not take advantage of doctors or pharmacists. The problem that we are running into is that seniors who are in nursing homes are for the most part on scheduled controlled substances and need check ups regularly. Practitioners who patients reside at these nursing homes do not have the means in which to treat each individual patient because the process takes several hours per patient. Dr. Bill Bryant from Owensboro Kentucky explains:
If a new prescription is required: I am required prior to the initial prescribing of a controlled medication to perform a complete history and physical, document a complete history and physical, query KASPER for all available data, formulate a written treatment plan, and obtain written informed consent. Now do I stop seeing office patients and drive to the nursing home or not? I care for approximately 86 out of 92 patients in one nursing home. There are only 5 physicians in Daviess County who continue to see an estimated 600 nursing home patients. All others have stopped due to complexity of care and regulatory burdens. I have concluded that complying with House Bill 1 will not allow time for me to go to the nursing home and I will have to stop caring for my nursing home patient’s. I do not know who will care for them? I am not sure anyone will. I was diagnosed with ADD/ADHD when I was 8 years old and have been taking medication almost all of my life. I have had the same doctor for three years, and had psychological testing done by a licensed therapist and have never been charged with a crime involving prescription medication. My experience with House Bill 1 happened just recently when I was required to sign a contract stating that I was subject to random urine screening’s and pill counts. I figured that my insurance would take care of the drug screenings, and that would be the end of it. Unfortunately, my Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance stated, “ it is not medically necessary, so there for we will not take responsibility for this testing”. The bill was 144.00 on top of the 300.00 a month cost of medical insurance while also meeting a 1,500.00 deductible each year.
I am a fulltime college student who works part-time and can not afford to pay 144.00 every 3 months. I tried to reason with my doctor, but there was nothing he could do, so my only option was to get off the medication I had been prescribed for over 10 years and switch to the only medication that was not labeled a controlled substance. John Cheves from The Lexington Herald Leader reported early January 2013, “In September, the Herald-Leader reported on complaints from patients charged hundreds of dollars for urine tests whose insurance companies denied coverage because the tests were not considered medically necessary. One retired couple in Lexington was billed $932 for urine tests necessary to get refills on insomnia and anti-anxiety medicines”.
House Bill 1 has created many problems over the past year and now that pill-mills are shutting down we are seeing heroin use on the rise. One of the main concerns lawmakers were supposed to tackle was the overdose rate in Kentucky. Bill Estep reported in the Herald Leader on December 2012:
A tidal wave of prescription-drug abuse drove the steep increase in overdose deaths. Of the 979 deaths in 2010, prescription drugs were involved in 522, or 53 percent, according to the study by the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center, the rate of overdose deaths rose from 6 per 100,000 Kentucky residents to 22.9 per 100,000 residents over the 11 years covered in the study. That meant Kentucky had the third-highest rate of overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2010, up from fifth the year before, said Terry Bunn, director of the research center and an author of the report. The illegal prescription drug abuse in this State has spun out of control, and as a result unnecessary overdoses are accruing all over the State. The main concern now is that patients who cannot receive the proper medication needed will have to find other ways to cope with their symptoms. Heroin use has become a substitute for this situation. Beth Musgrave reported in the Lexington Herald Leader on January 25, 2013: Prescription pills are relatively expensive anywhere from $40 to $100 per pill. An addict at the end stages of an opiate addiction will need to spend at least $600 a day on prescription pills just to function. The same heroin high would probably cost about $100, police said.

If House Bill 1 is not redacted overdoses and crime will continue to skyrocket, patients who need medication will resort to illegal or harmful substances, and doctors will continue to drop our low income senior citizens from care due to stringent regulations. House Bill 1 made a good attempt at curbing doctor shopping, illegal pill-mills who distribute mass amounts of prescription medication without consequence, and keeping all practitioners up to date on patient’s medical history. There is still a lot of work to be done on this Bill; usually there are always situations that lawmakers cannot for see. But, if these problems are not addressed in a reasonable amount of time there will be more devastating consequences than they originally anticipated.

Work Cited Page
Beth, Musgrave. "Heroin replacing pain pill as a drug choice in some parts of Kentucky." Lexington Herald Leader [Lexington] 05 01 2013, non-print. <http://www.kentucky.com/2013/01/25/2490566/heroin-replacing-pain-pills-as.html>.
Bryant, Bill. "Testimony of House Bill Oversight Committee on Behalf of KAFP." n. page. Print. <http://www.kafp.org/2012/09/13/dr-bill-bryant-of-ownesboro-testimony-to-hb1-oversight-committee-on-behalf-of-kafp/>.
Estep, Bill. "Drug overdose deaths up 296 percent from 2000 to 2010 in Kentucky ." (2012): n. page. Web. 17 Mar. 2013. <Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/12/20/2451315/drug-overdose-deaths-up-296-percent.html
Cheves, John. "Ky. lawmakers expected to alter pill mill bill in session that starts Tuesday ." www.Kentucky.com. N.p., 05 01 2013. Web. 17 Mar 2013. < http://www.kentucky.com/2013/01/05/2465788/ky-lawmakers-expected-to-alter.html

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