The practice that I am going to describe is quite common in our community but I am not sure it is acceptable. I wanted the opinion of the experts on this list.
Occassionally, we run into a problem with a patient who seems to be doctor hopping and getting multiple prescriptions for narcotics. In order for the patient's principle physician to keep a close watch on the patient's use of narcotics and to avoid abuse/misuse of narcotics, the physician makes a deal with the patient. The deal is "ALL prescriptions for narcotics must be funneled through one doctor-the primary care physician." The patient usually agrees but then (and here is where I am not sure if we are infringing on privacy)we can send an "Alert" to all the area pharmacies to alert them that this deal occurred and if the patient shows up at one of the area pharmacies with a narcotic prescription from someone other than the primary care physician, the patient is told that they have an order that they can not fill the prescription unless it comes from the designated doctor. Is this practice acceptable? Do we need the patient's consent to notify all heighborhood pharmacies? Is verbal consent acceptable? Can the information be sent to the pharmacies without the patient's specific consent (that is, the patient consented to the arrangement that one doctor fills all narcotic prescriptions but the patient did not consent to the information being sent to all area pharmacies? ) Thank you Rich Fairley, M.D. --- The WEDI SNIP listserv to which you are subscribed is not moderated. The discussions on this listserv therefore represent the views of the individual participants, and do not necessarily represent the views of the WEDI Board of Directors nor WEDI SNIP. If you wish to receive an official opinion, post your question to the WEDI SNIP Issues Database at http://snip.wedi.org/tracking/. These listservs should not be used for commercial marketing purposes or discussion of specific vendor products and services. They also are not intended to be used as a forum for personal disagreements or unprofessional communication at any time. You are currently subscribed to wedi-privacy as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this list, go to the Subscribe/Unsubscribe form at http://subscribe.wedi.org or send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you need to unsubscribe but your current email address is not the same as the address subscribed to the list, please use the Subscribe/Unsubscribe form at http://subscribe.wedi.org
