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Budget woes threaten Pennsylvania prescription drug monitoring expansion

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Budget woes threaten Pennsylvania prescription drug monitoring expansion

Pennsylvania may no longer be able to expand its prescription drug monitoring program by June due to a lack of funds.

Signed into law by former Gov. Tom Corbett in October, S.B. 1180 is expected to ensure better outcomes for injured workers by expanding the list of drugs tracked under Pennsylvania's monitoring program to include all controlled substances under the federal Controlled Substances Act and by making the database available to all health care providers and pharmacists.

Pennsylvania currently monitors only Schedule II controlled substances, such as oxycodone, and the database is only available to the state's attorney general and law enforcement officials.

However, Republican state Sen. Pat Vance, who sponsored the bill, said during a news conference on Thursday that there's not enough money in the state budget to cover two-thirds of the $1 million project that was set to launch in June, according to news website Pennlive.com. Sen. Vance said the remaining $300,000 is expected to come from the budget of the attorney general.

“Far too many times people start with opiates, and then they end up on heroin,” Sen. Vance said during the news conference.” Despite there being “no money in the budget to pay for the prescription drug monitoring that's supposed to start June 1,” she added, it's important to highlight the need for such a program.

Sen. Vance added that prescription drug monitoring programs have “proven in other states to be very helpful in cutting deaths.”

In many states, such as New York and Tennessee, health care providers are required to check such databases before prescribing opioids.

Pennsylvania and Missouri are the only two states without a prescription drug monitoring program that health care providers can access. Missouri Rep. Holly Rehder, a Republican, is currently pushing H.B. 130 in that state, which would establish a prescription drug monitoring program.

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