Pharmacist’s Corresponding Responsibility

The responsibility for the proper prescribing and
dispensing of medications lies primarily with the
prescribing practitioner. However, a corresponding
responsibility rests with the pharmacist who fills
a prescription order. The DEA recommends that a
pharmacist scrutinize each prescription. Some things to
look for are quantities, directions, or dosages that differ
from usual medical usage or practice. Check to see if the
prescription has been presented in a reasonable length
of time since the prescriber wrote it. If the patient is
returning too frequently or refilling the same prescription
on a weekly or even a daily basis, it may be fraudulent.
To prevent diversion, know the patient and his or her
medication history. Get to know your prescribers and
their signatures and DEA registration numbers. If you
see anything that is suspicious, call the prescriber using
the telephone book or your record of his or her telephone
number and not the number on the prescription for
verification or clarification. If you believe that you have
received a forged, altered, or counterfeit prescription, do
not dispense it. Call your local police department.

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Office Use in Kansas

Office Use Prescriptions
The Board has been asked on occasion whether
an “office use” prescription is valid. The answer is
no. Medications prescribed must be dispensed to a
patient. When medication is sent from a pharmacy to a
practitioner for administration, the transfer is considered
a distribution.
The transfer of a prescription medication is permitted
from one pharmacy to another pharmacy or practitioner.
The transfer must be documented with an invoice record.
The invoice record must have the name, strength, form of
the medication, the name and address of both the seller
and the purchaser, and the date of the sale. This record
should be maintained for five years with your pharmacy
records.
If the transfer is a controlled substance, the invoice
must also include the DEA number of both the seller
and the purchaser. If the medication is a Schedule II
medication, the purchaser must provide a DEA Form 222
to the seller before the transfer is completed.
A retail pharmacy may transfer prescription drugs to
another retail pharmacy to alleviate a temporary shortage,
except that the gross dollar value of these transfers
shall not exceed 5% of the total prescription-only drug
sales revenue of either the transferor or the transferee
pharmacy during any period of 12 consecutive months.
If a pharmacy is selling more than 5% they should be
registered as a wholesale distributor
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Officials: Nat'l drug shortage having distinct effect in Az

Posted Dec 3, 2012, 8:38 pm

Lorri AllenCronkite News Service

PHOENIX – A national drug shortage is endangering patients’ health and forcing doctors, pharmacists and first responders to scramble to find supplies, according to experts who shared their stories with Cronkite News Service.

“It’s a terrible problem,” said Tom Van Hassel, vice president of theArizona State Board of Pharmacy and director of pharmacy at Yuma Regional Medical Center. “On any given day, there are 15-20 drugs we’re scrambling to find.”

Pharmacists, especially in rural Arizona, are paying more and spending more time to get drug supplies, Van Hassel said.

“These are drugs used every day in our hospital. I don’t think any hospital in the state has escaped this shortage,” he said. “When we’re out, we’re truly out. The nearest hospital is 150 miles away.”

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Legislators to look at drug shortages Doctors, medical administrators testify at hearing

Andrea K. Walker, The Baltimore Sun

6:57 p.m. EST, December 4, 2012

The staff at Anne Arundel Medical Center considered canceling some surgeries on a recent weekend because the hospital was running low on a common drug used to help bring people out from under anesthesia.

It is the kind of problem hospitals and doctors around the country continue to face as drug shortages that began a few years ago threaten the way everyday medicine is practiced.

The problem has persisted even after calls from Congress and President Barack Obama to find a solution and a federal investigation that found widespread abuses in the drug manufacturing and distribution system. Maryland lawmakers are jumping into the fray with plans to introduce legislation to tackle the issue at the state level.

On Tuesday, the Joint Committee on Health Care Delivery and Finance held a hearing to gather insights on what role the state could play.

Dr. Barry Meisenberg, chair of quality improvement and health systems research at Anne Arundel Medical Center, said the shortages force doctors to make tough decisions on how to treat patients. The hospital decided not to cancel surgeries that weekend, but Meisenberg said the issue was real.

"I used this as an example of how serious this has become," Meisenberg said.

State, FDA could have prevented meningitis outbreak, official says

Updated: Tuesday, 04 Dec 2012, 1:14 PM EST
Published : Tuesday, 04 Dec 2012, 1:14 PM EST

• Matt Murphy, State House News Service

BOSTON (State House News Service) - As the state’s pharmacy board considers final regulations to improve oversight of retail and compounding pharmacies, some in the industry believe it was the lack of enforcement of existing rules that led to a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak.

“In retrospect, we feel this situation could have been prevented if either the FDA or the Board of Pharmacy enforced the regulations already on the books,” Todd Brown, executive director of the Massachusetts Independent Pharmacists Association, told the News Service Tuesday after testifying before the board.

Brown and David Miller, of the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, offered feedback Tuesday to the Board of Registration in Pharmacy on emergency regulations put in place Nov. 1 following the linkage of the meningitis outbreak to tainted steroids produced by the New England Compounding Center in Framingham.

Only three people testified on the regulations that apply to an industry that has come under scrutiny in Massachusetts and at the federal level in the wake of the outbreak.

Brown called it “ironic” that a Massachusetts pharmacy would be responsible given the relatively strict regulations already in place, and he called NECC an “outlier” that flaunted the state’s regulations and yet their violations went undetected.

Board president James DeVita and counsel Heather Engman alone were on hand to collect public comment on the regulations adopted at the direction of Gov. Deval Patrick in early November. The state at that time also permanently revoked NECC’s pharmacy license and Patrick established a special commission to report back before the end of the year on legislative steps the state could take to improve its oversight and pharmacy licensing laws and regulations.

The board also began periodic, unannounced inspections of compounding labs in the state.

While the regulations governing Massachusetts-based pharmacies are already strong, according to Brown and Miller, both said they had concerns that there was no registration process for out-of-state pharmacies doing business in Massachusetts. Georgia and Pennsylvania are the only other two states that don’t require out-of-state registration.

“It is a concern to us whenever we see a board that doesn’t have the same type of protections for citizens of pharmacies and compounding pharmacies outside its borders,” Miller said.

Brown said he has been in contact with legislators who have agreed to file legislation regarding the registration of out-of-state pharmacies in Massachusetts, though he declined to name lawmakers with whom he has been working.

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