Before the Joint Committee on Public Health
The Massachusetts Medical Society wishes to oppose in the strongest possible way House 1931. This legislation is the latest in an apparently never ending series of initiatives micromanaging the practice of medicine in the Commonwealth. In this case, the issue is prescription drug abuse. This is an important issue, which is why a 20 page law, Chapter 244 of the Acts of 2013, was enacted just last year.
H.1931 would require continuing medical education (CME ) for all physicians on prescribing of schedule II drugs. Many physicians do not prescribe such drugs. Additionally all physicians are required now to take CME’s in pain management, which is the clinical use of schedule II drugs. Passage of this bill would waste enormous resources in irrelevant or redundant educational programs for thousands of physicians.
Additionally, this bill requires all physicians to dispense information from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), make their patients read it and sign it before each prescription for a schedule II drug is issued. Do you want your aged parent with terminal cancer to have to read materials from a law enforcement agency about the dangers of drug addiction before every prescription they receive?
As required by Chapter 244 of the Acts of 2012, the MMS is working with the Department of Public Health on an advisory council on opioid abuse. We are working on making the prescription monitoring program an effective tool in combating drug abuse. We are providers of CME programs on pain management and addiction. Shouldn’t we be reviewing the impact of that law before furthering new legislation in the same area?
The MMS respectfully asks the Committee on Public Health not to advance this and similar legislation.
