Lawmakers and patient advocates in Sacramento called for the Medical Board of California on Monday to mine a statewide database of prescriptions to identify doctors to recklessly proscribe narcotics, according to a story in the LA Times.
The meeting was emotional, with parents and family members of those who have died of narcotics overdoses prescribed by their doctors.
"If we are going to take seriously the role of patient protection, then we have to be proactive in determining if there is a pattern of overprescribing it," Assemblyman Richard Gordon (D-Menlo Park) told the LA Times.
Gordon co-chairs a joint legislative panel that oversees the medical board. The board launches investigations into doctors only in response to complaints, while several legislators and advocates want it to use the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, or CURES, state database of prescriptions to launch its own investigations.
According to the Times article, some physician groups oppose this move, saying that it could discourage doctors from prescribing the medications for legitimate treatment. However, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as California Attorney General Kamala Harris, support using the database as an investigative tool. Harris has called for lawmakers to support funding to make improvements to the database.
According to medical board President Sharon Levine, the board has the authority to mine the database, but lacks the staffing resources to do so. She also said that without a patient’s signed complaint, judges tend to be reluctant to grant subpoenas to medical records on the basis of CURES data alone.
